


Rabbit Heart

by Kayasurin



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Allusions to smut, Getting Together, Jack has a computer, Jack is a babbly thing, M/M, Mpreg, Physical transformations, Species Dysphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/pseuds/Kayasurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or- the story of how Jack got his heart's desire, Aster got his heart's desire, and the Guardians enacted a 'send elves through to the Warren to make sure everyone's wearing their metaphorical pants' policy for their sanity.</p><p>Warnings for: Jack being a rambly bastard leading to Walls of Text. You have been warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How Quickly the Glamour Fades

He hadn't known what was _wrong_ with him for the longest time. ( _Two hundred and ninety-seven years, three months, and five days, if you wanted to be specific._ )

Just- there were days where he could forget how _wrong_ his body felt, how even after so long he still got a funny little jolt when he looked at his hands and feet and they weren't what he wanted to see. He had known about gender dysphoria, of course- boys born knowing they were meant to be girls, girls knowing they were meant to be boys, and that made sense. Kind of. If you looked at things with a twenty-first century viewpoint, where science was just as (for some people, more than) important as God's will. But that was sex; those people might have had the wrong plumbing, to be crude about it, but they hadn't had thoughts like "you know, I think I really should have fur instead of hair."

At least, he didn't figure they had those thoughts. He wasn't a mind reader or anything.

 For the longest time, Jack had figured he'd been the only one to think that sort of thing- to mentally fluff up a full pelt against the Wind's playful gusts, to imagine his ears twitching and twisting to catch noises, to wonder what it would be like to look down and see _paws_ instead of _hands_. He'd put it all down to yet more weirdness of being Jack Frost; he could fly and was walked through and everyone hated him (or so it seemed on his worst days; on his best he was optimistic and figured he hadn't properly met his friends-to-be yet). He hadn't dared examine the feelings too closely, because- well, because they were wrong, weren't they? He was human. He'd always been human. Besides, his discontent with his physical shape was probably a side effect of, you know, the invisible and walked through part of his life.

_(Maybe, if he were furry and cute and cuddly people would see him, touch him, talk to him- but he wasn't.)_

In fact, it was after the whole... fiasco in twenty-twelve with Pitch and Easter and becoming a Guardian (and explaining to the Guardians after that, you know, Jack had been _sarcastic_ when he'd said he liked being shoved in a sack and tossed through a magic portal. He hadn't enjoyed it at _all_ and he was kind of sore about it, and just sore in general. Turned out he'd had broken ribs from Pitch tossing him into a glacial crevasse, and- well, the three weeks after he'd been initiated had been _interesting_ , to say the least) that he'd even considered he maybe wasn't quite as weird and freakish as he'd first thought.

It'd been North, actually. Jack had been hanging out with the old guy, curled up on the window seat and watching the blizzard outside while North read letters to Santa. Technically e-mails, twenty-thirteen being the electronic age, but North had wrangled Jack into helping set up the computer, the internet, and teach the yeti how to print the e-mails off.

North's reaction to spam had been hilarious. Jack wondered, sometimes, what those people who sent the porn invites and Viagra sales thought when they got coal on Christmas.

Who sent _spam_ to _Santa_? That was the _real_ question.

Jack hadn't been thinking of much, just admiring the patterns in the whirling snow, when North had sighed, big and loud like he did when he got one of _those_ letters. The ones that typically had kids asking for a gender change, or for a beloved pet to be brought back to life, or for mommy or daddy to please stop beating them.

"What's it?" Jack had asked.

"Oh. Is unusual, but sad." North, always relieved to share his troubles with a willing ear, had continued without prompting. "Child is old to be writing to Santa, but is... desperate, according to letter. She wishes she were cat."

"Um. What?"

Which had led into the whole talk about how some people were born feeling like they were in the wrong body. "Politest name is furry, or perhaps otherkin. Maybe changechild. They feel like they should be anthropomorphic animal, usually. Sometimes full animal."

"That's..." Familiar, Jack wanted to say, and didn't. "Different."

"Common enough there are conventions in Vegas," North said, and picked the letter back up. "Poor child. Poor, poor child."

Jack bit his lip and refrained from saying there were conventions in Vegas for _everything_.

He'd put it in the back of his mind for the rest of winter, just- left it alone. He had his duty to ensure the cold weather went off without a hitch. And maybe mess with the Groundhog a little when he predicted an early spring or a late winter. The guy was a self centered, stuck up, would-be jock type that made Jack's metaphorical hackles stand on end.

And his reactions were always _hilarious_.

He made sure not to mess with Easter, though. There were easier ways to tug on Bunny's metaphorical pigtails, after all, stuff he could do year round. And, well, Bunny smiled real nice whenever he found his Easter Sunday snow-free. Sure, it'd only been two years, but Jack wasn't going to get tired of that expression any time soon.

Just like feeling wrong in his own body, Jack didn't examine his feelings for Bunny. He was- interesting, that was all. The kind of guy who could be the most interesting person in a crowded room, except he preferred listening to everyone else and maybe doing profile sketches because a Bunny without a pencil and paper was either working on his eggs and chocolates or depressed; one or the other.

Jack wanted to get to know Bunny, wanted to listen to stories about the Golden Age and what it'd been like to live in an entirely different _galaxy_ and maybe pick the alien lagomorph's brain about science, and also maybe Jack wanted to crawl under Bunny's skin and feel his heart beat next to the Pooka's and there was nothing weird about that at _all_.

Jack read a lot of books on the 'hard' sciences, like math and chemistry and biology and did his best to ignore psychiatry. He didn't want to examine his own brain, and he was pretty sure dwelling too much on his emotions would end in hives and possibly a half-dozen neuroses.

So yeah, he'd found new ways to mess with Bunny over the past two years. Nothing mean, because Jack didn't want to be that guy, didn't want Bunny to hate him, not once they'd solidified their fragile truce. Just, you know, things. Like juggling the egglets (which loved the attention, even if Bunny freaked out) or filling the Warren with frost figures or sneaking into Bunny's burrow and making him lunches and dinners, or dusting, or one time doing the laundry. That sort of thing always got a nice little double take, even if Jack never stuck around long enough to be yelled at for the invasion of privacy.

Whatever, he hung about and watched from hiding. What was the point of doing something if he didn't find a convenient hideaway and giggled over the results?

It always ended with Bunny giving him his full attention, which Jack loved, for reasons he wasn't about to examine because he did have a thing against hives, he didn't want them, wasn't going to risk catching them. It was all harmless, in good fun.

And it gave Jack ample opportunity to watch the lagomorph, the way his ears twitched and his nose wrinkled and how he switched between running on four legs and walking on two like Jack switched dominant hands (being ambidextrous was something he'd learnt, but it wasn't like he hadn't had the time). Jack sometimes snuck into the Warren intending to pull a prank or something, and then got sidelined because Bunny was doing katas or something and Jack just wanted to watch the play of light on gray fur. And also maybe learn a few new fighting tricks. Mostly the light on fur thing, though.

After Easter that year, Jack had found himself at loose ends. Bunny was sleeping the sleep of the deeply exhausted (and Jack was maybe checking in about once a day to keep a carafe of water fresh and topped up near Bunny's bedside- nest-side? Whatever the proper term was- with some fresh fruit in a bowl, because Bunny tended to sleep after Easter for several days in a row, wake up long enough to have a bit of food and some water, then roll over and sleep some more for several more days. The routine tended to last something like two months) and Tooth and Sandy couldn't really spare that much time from their duties, and North typically got _strange_ this time of year too. Kind of squirrely in a 'trying to be secretive and utterly failing' sort of way.

Jack wasn't about to poke into North's business, really he wasn't, but seriously if the old guy wanted to visit Santoff Clausen why not just _go_ instead of trying to be subtle about it? Not like anyone was going to begrudge him time with his family or anything.

So, free time, Jack had it, and like always during spring in North America (and Europe, and Asia, and technically the Middle East although it tended to be warm enough there that they didn't get what Jack thought of as a 'proper' winter) he didn't quite know what to do. And like he always ended up doing in spring, Jack hit up Japan for the latest technological advances and maybe borrowed- _cough_ -stole outdated computer parts from rubbish bins in Tokyo and then returned to Burgess to update his monster-beast of a homemade computer.

He wasn't a gear-head or anything, didn't live and breathe computer code, but it was nice to surf the web. And, in fact, it was entirely possible for him to communicate with people by forum posts, though he certainly wasn't about to tell random strangers "hey I'm Jack Frost and I'm a spirit" because maybe they wouldn't ban him, but they would label him a crazy person and then the conversations would stop.

So he kept that part of himself quiet.

And, as he'd been around computers since, you know, the very beginning where they'd been the size of very large rooms or very small buildings, and hadn't had as much processing power as the modern calculator, he did know what he was doing. Back before the internet, he'd used his computer to play games- taken from trash bins everywhere, and the less said about his three decade arcade obsession the better- and then as the internet had been invented and taken over he'd found more and more games and these days he had a small bank account just so he could buy games online. Most of his conversations were through game forums, actually, and he was actually a mod on several multiplayer platforms.

Griefing the griefers was fun, and he was an expert at it.

So, after his trip to Japan, Jack had returned back to Burgess and found a new good spot for his computer (burnt out building not slated for restoration work until autumn, close enough to the local coffee shop's free wi-fi that he didn't have to worry about internet access, and enough spare change floating around the small downtown that he was able to leave about five dollars daily in tips for the shop's workers to maybe assuage a bit of his guilt at stealing the internet without buying anything) and upgraded the beast.

Once his computer had been upgraded, he'd meant to go onto the games, see if any of them had been updated and touch base with his online friends-

But instead he'd googled "I feel like I'm in the wrong body" and started going through the list.

Mostly he'd found stuff about the gender dysphoria, which he'd already known about. But it was nice to check up some related links which led to actual medical studies and things.

And then he'd found the stuff on species dysphoria, and _hoo boy_.

Jack had read a page or two, shut down his computer, and headed off to see if Bunny was awake. He was, sort of, so instead of a prank or trick or ten, Jack had actually sat down and had a conversation. He couldn't recall just what they'd talked about, but it'd been... good. Comfortable. And there'd been something right about helping Bunny make a salad for dinner, something right about looking across the table to see a sleepy-eyed, anthromorphic rabbit (alien or not) smiling crookedly at him.

He'd ended up too full of warm and fuzzies to look up species dysphoria again, and so when he'd returned to his current base camp he'd jumped on his various game forums and lost himself in the chatter and watching for flame wars. He's spent most of the night on the computer, actually, and when he'd finally crashed he'd dreamt of soft gray fur and long ears and twitching whiskers and woken up with an awkward boner that proved he had a healthy heartbeat, at least, even if he could hold his breath for something like two hours without trying.

Jack had stayed away from the internet research for something like two weeks, filling his time with playing games on the internet (and introducing his believers in Burgess to games like _Minecraft_ and _Angry Birds_ and the Popcap website and there was old school pong given a facelift for the current century, and stuff from Steam like _A Game of Dwarves_ and _Terraria_ and _Psychonauts_ and Cupcake had taken to _Civ 5_ with a terrifying amount of skill, now that he thought about it) and chatting on forums and checking out YouTube for the latest in tutorials and 'griefers getting it' stuff.

And, you know, spending time with Bunny now that he was awake. Bunny had somehow gotten the idea that they weren't as good friends as they could be, and Jack wasn't about to argue against spending time with- he had to admit it, if only to himself- his favorite out of all the Guardians. Tooth was beautiful and intelligent, Sandy was charming and intelligent, and North was like the scary grandfather of the group, ready with a sword or a story, whichever was needed. But Bunny...

Besides Jack's occasionally awkward desire to shove the Pooka down onto his stomach and break out the grooming tools because seriously, _that fur_ , Bunny was just- fun. Even when Jack wasn't pulling pranks and watching the reactions, Bunny was fun. They had races and explored and Jack eventually gathered up the courage to ask about the katas and then there were lessons in something called Pooka Capo and a bunch of other martial arts after Jack made the mistake of mentioning he'd tried to study Kendo once. Kendo had been fun, but hard to learn on his own.

Jack still pulled tricks on Bunny, his favorite being the cooking and cleaning and then he added in reorganizing Bunny's shelves because the 'pick it up and set it down somewhere else and shove things wherever they fit' system just didn't make any sense and it made Jack twitch.

A little.

Not to crazy amounts, but really, books didn't belong in the pantry with the tomatoes and old paint tins.

For that matter, old paint tins didn't belong in the pantry with the books and tomatoes.

Bunny always got a little weird when he saw Jack after those tricks, mouth scrunched up and nose wrinkled and facial fur fluffed a little like he was feeling cold and trying to stay warm. And his eyes would be speculative, but not in a bad "how far will he fly if I kick him" kind of way, more like... Jack wasn't sure what the speculation was like, but it wasn't _bad_ and that was good enough for him.

Jack made sure to always act normal after he'd pulled a prank or reorganized Bunny's pantry, whichever. And Bunny didn't get upset about it, beyond the weird expressions, so Jack figured that was kind of permission to continue. Or at least lack of yelling and banishment from the Warren, which counted as the same thing in his mind.

By the time summer came around, Jack felt settled enough to hit the internet again, this time googling 'species dysphoria' specifically. The information he'd found had been interesting, though he'd done his best to stay to the factual, quasi-scientific instead of the blogs and artwork.

And then he'd ended up looking at the blogs because the factual and quasi-scientific wasn't exactly enough.

He'd taken a break from it all, again, before he'd gotten to the point of looking at artwork. Since it'd been heading towards autumn, he'd moved his computer and stuff to a new base before anyone started renovations on his current place. And then he'd taken a quick trip to Vegas to check out the 'furry convention', which had been eye opening.

Jack didn't figure he'd ever want to wear a costume (they reminded him a bit of mascot costumes, for baseball and football and all that) and the yiffing thing was... kind of very weird, actually, because who wanted to have sex while wearing a mascot costume? But there had been panels and conversations in the hall, and Jack had shamelessly eavesdropped on just about everything- except the yiffing, which had been private room only- for the whole long weekend.

Immediately after the long weekend he'd had more awkward dreams about Bunny, this time about what it'd be like to sprawl out on top of him or be pinned down under him, what the fur would feel like if he stroked along Bunny's sides and back and what it'd feel like to press their erections together and-

Jack typically woke up, took care of the morning woody, and then yanked on his hair after cleaning up. He couldn't even blame Sandy. It was all his own stupid brain, and- he hadn't had those types of dreams for three centuries! He hadn't had them either as a human. Was there something else wrong with him? And why was he focusing on Bunny instead of, say, Tooth, or Sandy? (Never, ever North because Jack wasn't into older men, even if technically North was almost fifty years younger than he was. That had been a _fun_ discovery.)

(No, really, it'd been fun. He _still_ got the giggles sometimes when North called him 'my boy'.)

Late autumn had started into full swing by that point, and Jack had been able to distract himself with work. He frosted the leaves to make them change, frosted the crops to encourage ripening, and frosted everything because if he was working he wasn't thinking about the long line of Bunny's back when he ran, or how those thick fingers could do the most delicate work, or-

See? Not thinking about it.

The seasons had spun on, autumn turning into winter. And Jack found that, of all (four) of his friends, Bunny put the most effort into keeping in touch with him. Jack typically worked thirty hour days at a stretch, herding wind streams and clouds, before collapsing for a few hours only to wake up and head out to a snowball fight or skating party or whatever. Winter was a busy time for him, okay? But somehow Bunny always found him, and had a mug of hot chocolate or waxed paper cone of roasted chestnuts, and maybe Jack didn't feel the cold the same way now he was a spirit instead of a human, but he always felt warmed down to his bare toes when the lagomorph showed up.

Sometimes there were hugs. Which absolutely weren't Jack's favorite parts of the brief encounters. Nope. Not. at. all.

Really.

In return, Jack maybe carved out enough time to sneak into the Warren and the burrow and whip up the occasional treat, like the carrot cake or the pumpkin seed muffins (which turned out to be a guilty pleasure of Bunny's) or fresh cherries right before he had to land a snowstorm in Japan.

And then it was Bunny's crunch time for Easter, so Jack maybe found time to slip into the Warren and help out on the prep work, mostly by ensuring Bunny got enough to eat and drink even if he wouldn't sleep or anything in the last few weeks.

Things went the way they usually did; there wasn't any snow on Easter Sunday, though Jack did lay down a heavy layer of hoar frost just because the weathermen would cry otherwise, and Bunny smiled, and Jack maybe walked with the Pooka back to the Warren because it was kind of nice, just the two of them, side by side. And then they'd reached the Warren, and Bunny pulled Jack in for a long hug, and it'd been nice and Jack had been able to lightly pet Bunny's fur, and he would've happily stayed like that for a few hours except Bunny fell asleep and they fell to the ground and Jack managed to put a tooth through his bottom lip and the whole thing ended with a trip to North's Workshop for stitches.

But, you know, before the whole falling to the ground bit, it'd been _really_ nice.

Kind of... _date_ nice.

After he'd gotten the stitches and Bunny was safely back in his burrow, Jack had flown off in a panic to Tooth. Because if anyone could help him figure out what the _heck_ was going on, it'd be her.

Tooth was a good friend. She'd taken one look at Jack's expression and chivvied him into a comfortable sitting room, with a pot of tea and plate of cookies (Tooth occasionally bent her 'no sweets' rule if it was for a friend and if said friend was having some kind of emotion related emergency) and Jack had unburdened himself to her. More or less. More when it came to Bunny, less when it came to his near certainty that he had species dysphoria and he also did his best to keep mum about the dreams that came almost every time he slept now, but a little of that kind of made it into the conversation too.

"You've never... felt this way before? About anyone?" Tooth poured him another cup of tea.

"Well- I don't know... No. Not really." Jack huffed. "Its not- I mean, I care about people, I care about a lot of people, but I've never wanted to... and I've never had weird dreams about them, either."

"You love people, but you've never been in love."

Jack frowned. "What's the difference?"

Tooth looked off into the middle distance, clearly thinking. "When you love someone, you care about them, you want them to be happy, you want to keep them safe- but you don't lust for them either. When you're in love, you desire them physically too."

Desire them... Jack blushed, practically purple. "I, uh, me and- Bunny? But I..." He'd trailed off, unable to voice his thoughts and feelings and a bit miserable about it.

"What is it you like most about Bunny?" Tooth asked.

Jack flailed a bit, but only after putting down the cup of tea first. "I- I- well, he's fun. I guess. I mean, his reactions are pretty- and he knows a lot, you know? And, I don't know- I like his eyes?" And his ears, and the patterns of black fur against gray, and the ruff of fur at his neck, and how white his belly was, and the way his tail twitched when he was holding in laughter and- there was a lot about Bunny Jack liked, physically, which was the weird part because that? That had never happened before.

Tooth had clearly read that in his expression, even if he'd never said anything. "If Bunny was a girl, would you feel differently?"

"No?" _Why would he?_

"A lot of people are fun, you know. But you don't feel this way about them?"

He shrugged. "I don't know them very well, I guess."

Tooth had thought about it for a bit, before giving him a sideways hug. "Jack, this is... very normal. Some people can desire others just because they're attracted physically to them. Other people need an emotional connection first. You're just one of the second."

"You... don't think it's weird?" Jack asked. "I mean, we're both guys, and- and Bunny's not even the same _species_ , and-"

Tooth shook him by the shoulders a little. "I think love is one of the most beautiful emotions a person can experience," she'd said quietly. "I think being in love is beautiful. I think you can see Bunny's heart as well as his body, Jack, and that's wonderful. Gender doesn't matter. And species- well, he's sentient, so it's not a problem."

Tooth was, Jack remembered, half human, and half fairy. He supposed she knew what she was talking about.

"Wait, love?"

She giggled at him. "What did you think you were feeling, Jack?"

"Oh." He was in _love_ with Bunny.

Which maybe prompted its own, separate panic once it'd sunk in, but Tooth had let him freak out and giggled when he spluttered and calmed him down with tea and cookies when it was over. Okay. So he was in love with the Easter Bunny.

It was kind of nice, once he got used to the idea.

It wasn't like the knowledge changed him or anything. He did all the things he'd done before- gone to Japan to check out the new technology, upgraded his computer with last year's cast offs, played his games and checked in on a sleeping Bunny, and continued poking around at the species dysphoria. He was almost one-hundred percent sure that was what he'd always felt, even back in colonial times as a human (mortal human, not spirit human), and he started reading up on the various blogs on the subject.

One blog said that the writer (they weren't clear on gender, which, you know, there was a lot of hateful messages on the blogs, he could understand why the anonymity) had felt better about their self once they'd figured out what animal they were, and suggested other people figuring out the whole species dysphoria figure it out too. And then look up the details about their animal, because it could help explain why they felt the way they did about things.

It was good advice. Jack thought about it while playing his more mindless games, and when he visited the Warren only to find Bunny still sleeping.

Jack actually figured it out during one of those visits. He'd maybe sort of snuck in to watch Bunny sleep, and maybe try to figure out why he felt physically drawn to the Pooka. It hadn't been any one thing, he'd figured- it was Bunny, all of him, personality and body- but then he'd realized he also felt... _jealous_.

Jealous, because Bunny had the perfect form, really. The best of both worlds if you wanted to look at it that way. Bunny had long, twitching ears and a sleek pelt, and a cute little nose (not that Jack would ever say so aloud, he _liked_ living) and opposable thumbs for his paws, and- in a way it wasn't fair. Jack... wanted, and he realized he didn't just want to be _with_ Bunny, but _like_ Bunny.

He wanted to be able to run on all fours, or walk on two legs. He wanted a pelt of his own (thicker, he was sure, but not by much) and to walk on his toes and yet be perfectly balanced. He wanted the same wiry strength, the speed, the superior senses (which Bunny occasionally gloated over, but he complained about them just as often) and he even wanted the flat buck teeth that grew continuously.

He was so jealous, he actually had to leave, because everything that he wanted was embodied in one person and it just wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that he was- was _in love_ with someone so wonderful, and so _jealous_ because of what made them wonderful.

Jack ended up with another two weeks to figure out his feelings for the Pooka, and he avoided researching rabbits the entire time. He didn't need to add more information, not when he was still sorting things out.

He did take a peek at some of the 'furry' artwork, though. A lot of it was NSFW, or generally stuff he wouldn't let a kid look at. But... good, in a weird way, especially the rabbit stuff.

The best part of having his own computer no one knew about? He could favorite stuff- like the one picture of a gray, humanoid rabbit and it wasn't racy, precisely, but it was evocative- and no one would ever know.

Getting memberships to the various furry forums was kind of funny, though. Yeah, he was over eighteen... Had to make up a new birthday for himself, though. He couldn't remember his old one, and he could hardly put down the late sixteen hundreds for his birth year.

And if he woke up with an almost painful erection after dreaming of Bunny, of doing things with the Pooka, well... That was normal. Tooth said so.

Bunny woke up, and Jack figured things would go back to normal, and they did.

But they didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rabbit Heart will be posted every Friday with my NaNo word count- what my goal was, and where I'm currently at. Since there are five Fridays in the month, and five chapters, it works out!


	2. It's Not Enough

Bunny spent more time with Jack, and it wasn't just... hanging out, like they'd done before. They went places, and tried new foods (and Jack surprised Bunny by being a vegetarian, which had led to some fun teasing) and they talked about more personal stuff. History, that sort of thing. Observations about the world around them, and how fast culture and technology was changing. Mostly in a good way, these days.

It took him a few months to figure out they were dating. Really, the thing that clued him in had been the invite to a party someone was throwing (his first three hundred years no one had wanted to spend time with Jack, for various reasons; now that he was a Guardian, he didn't know anyone and honestly, didn't care to, since they'd ignored him for so long. He could hold a grudge, okay?) and it was addressed to Bunny and suggested he bring his 'significant other, Jack Frost'.

"Don't know why they bother inviting me," Bunny said, and tossed the card into his 'to be mulched' bin. Or recycling, really, but Jack preferred his description. "I haven't gone to that sort of thing for... longer than you've been alive." And Bunny's ears twitched in the way Jack had learnt meant embarrassment (or shame, but what was shameful about being old?)

Jack checked the card. "I'm your significant other?"

"Oh." Bunny's ears twitched faster. "Well. I-"

And here was the part where he'd let Jack down nicely, because they were friends, and Jack clutched his staff with white knuckles and braced himself for the rejection.

"-I'd like, but... Ya probably don't want a cranky old geezer like me," Bunny mumbled.

Jack had been so braced for rejection, he wasn't quite sure how to react to, you know, _not rejection_. "I- you like me?" _Like that?_

Bunny looked away, and fiddled with a drying dish cloth. "Yes."

"Oh," he whispered. Bunny had flinched. Which wasn't a good reaction, actually, and Jack had to say something back because that was an unhappy expression if there ever was one. So- something mature, reasonable, and convincing.

After half a second, Jack dropped his staff and glomped Bunny, knocking them both to the ground. He squirmed over the prone lagomorph until he could press their foreheads together.

"I like you too." Well, rather stronger than like, but he was pretty sure the declarations of love were supposed to wait a little.

"Crikey, Jackie, you couldn't just _say_ so?"

Jack laughed at Bunny's cranky tone of voice, since the rest of him was happy.

Things got very nice after that, because along with the stepping out and the talking and all, now they touched each other. Jack couldn't quite get enough of the feeling of Bunny's fur beneath his fingertips. Or the way Bunny leaned into his touch when he got the chance to feel up the Pooka's ears. And having Bunny touch him back was just short of Heaven, he was pretty sure.

There was always a little voice in the back of his mind going 'how would this feel through thick paw pads' or 'what would it be like if Bunny could touch your ears back the same way' or 'it'd be nice to purr the same way Bunny does' but Jack did his best to ignore it while he was with his- his love.

Jack figured there was only one problem with the new level to their relationship, and that was because the lessons in Pooka Capo kind of slowed to a crawl. Instead of standing off to the side and talking Jack through things, or demonstrating himself, Bunny instead all but plastered himself to Jack's back to help him through the motions, which felt very nice, but was also very distracting, and lessons tended to devolve into petting sessions where they figured out what felt good for each other.

They hadn't kissed yet, but Jack wasn't too worried. Bunny's muzzle and his own (wrong) jutting nose made that sort of thing difficult. If they never kissed, he wasn't sure he'd mind too much. Well, maybe a little.

Or a lot. Kissing looked like it could be a lot of fun, and if they needed to practice at it? The practice could be fun too.

And Jack, when he had time on his own, looked up rabbits and rabbit behavior. Which helped explain some of Bunny's habits once he started reading, actually.

The only difference between rabbits and Bunny was the whole sentience question. Physically they were similar (Jack actually talked about it with Bunny, which had led to an almost lecture. At the same time, it had been almost 'these are all the ways I'm not an animal please don't freak out because this really isn't bestiality and please don't leave me' panic- and Jack maybe wanted to find out who Bunny had been in previous relationships with and kill them, because Bunny wasn't supposed to be insecure about anything let alone, you know, _relationships_ \- and Bunny actually had a lot of the same rabbit instincts tempered with intellect, culture, and martial training) and Jack maybe abused his discoveries a bit.

Although in his defense, insisting Bunny lie on his back and go into one of those rabbit trances had been for the Pooka's own good. He'd been fretting so much over... some sort of contest involving chocolate... that he'd started losing fur in clumps. The sleep had been very much needed and he'd been calmer after, so it was all good.

And Bunny did say it was nice to have a second person helping him with the grooming thing. No matter how flexible you were, it was always tricky to brush your own back. (Though, like the martial arts lessons, the grooming tended to devolve into more petting and snuggling, after the sharp stuff had been put away of course).

Jack figured out he'd been inadvertently courting Bunny with the whole cooking and cleaning thing he'd been doing. He'd cornered Bunny about it a few weeks after reading up on how rabbit does took care of the burrows.

"No, I don't think you're a doe," Bunny huffed, and threatened Jack's face with a pink-tipped paintbrush. Jack moved out of easy painting reach, and raised his eyebrows. "You don't got the right bits, and you're sure not a- a Pooka." The hitch in his voice was normal, when speaking about his deceased people.

"Why would that matter?" Jack squinted down at Bunny's lap suspiciously. "I mean, you're a guy. Pooka weren't like spotted hyenas, were they? You? That _is_ a penis I feel when we start getting-"

"Jack!" Bunny twisted his ears in embarrassment, and twitched his nose. "How you go on. No. I'm a buck. For the moment."

"For the-?"

And more embarrassed ear twitching. "Shapeshifter. That includes gender. And, you know, I've never tested it or anything, but Pooka always were fertile and now with the spring and new life and all that, I'm probably worse-"

Jack held up one hand. "You can't get me pregnant, can you?"

"Only if you were female." Bunny paused, and frowned. "Probably. We're different species after all. I don't know how close Pooka are to humans. Might not be close enough."

Or might result in mules, Jack supposed. "So, the cleaning thing I was doing?"

Bunny cleared his throat, and focused on the egg he was painting. "It depends on who's got the burrow or what all. A doe with a really good home will have a buck cooking and cleaning for her, same as a buck with a good burrow will have a doe doing the home care. Just a way of showing you can contribute to the home, even if you don't have one yourself."

"Oh." And Bunny knew Jack was effectively homeless. "That makes sense. What else does it mean?"

"Level of care, usually," Bunny said, quietly. Jack had to strain a bit to hear him. "Favorite foods, and care given to the burrow owner's belongings, it- matters."

Jack racked his brain to try and remember if he'd ever made a meal Bunny had hated, or if he'd ever broken anything.

Bunny put his paintbrush down and squeezed Jack's knee. "Even when you were just joking around, you never... you always took care of me things. And of me too."

"Well," Jack said, mentally flailing a bit. "You're important."

"Even when snowing out Easter?"

"Okay, seriously, I didn't know what day it was! Are you _ever_ going to drop that?"

"Hm... nope."

"Argh!"

The wrestling match managed to prove- again- that Bunny still had the upper hand when it came to physical confrontations, but Jack didn't mind being pinned to the ground under a laughing Pooka, so, really, not a bad thing.

It wasn't actually long after that, that their relationship was outed to the other Guardians. Tooth already knew, of course, but Sandy and North had actually been caught by surprise.

It'd happened over Christmas. The elves had gone their usual crazy self, fixating on mistletoe and doing their best to catch people under it. Everyone had pretty much shrugged and agreed-without-saying-anything to stick with kisses on the cheek. And Jack had found it kind of fun, watching everyone else get caught. (Since he could take to the rafters, the elves had very little luck catching him. He kissed Tooth on the cheek, and Phil got him with a sneak attack, but that was about it.)

North made a big production of things, landing big smacking kisses to both cheeks (and complaining of fur in his mouth when he kissed Bunny or any of the yeti). Sandy gave quick pecks, as though he wasn't quite sure he was doing it right. Tooth preferred kissing people on the forehead, though she'd pecked Sandy on the lips when she was sure no one was watching. Bunny tended to nudge people's cheeks with his nose, which might or might not have been the Pooka version of a kiss now that Jack thought about it.

After dinner, Jack had been caught by the elves while sitting next to Bunny on the couch, both of them a comfortable distance from the fire. (Bunny with his fur, and Jack with the whole winter thing, enjoyed fireplaces from about a dozen feet away, which was the perfect distance, really.) Jack wasn't about to struggle to avoid kissing his _boyfriend_ , so he'd grinned and prepared for one of those nose to the cheek kisses.

Instead Bunny had awkwardly fitted his mouth to Jack's. His nose had pressed almost uncomfortably into Jack's cheek, and Jack's nose had been pressed hard and almost flat against Bunny's cheek, and Jack was pretty sure he'd gotten a few hairs in his mouth, but it'd also been the best kiss he'd ever gotten. (Not that he had much to compare with, since his only other kiss had been from Daisy Miller, who'd been his fiancée since they'd both been twelve after their parents had decided; she'd been an alright girl, but looking back Jack had known they'd have had a miserable marriage. He just hadn't been interested in her that way at all.)

They'd pulled back from each other, and Jack had been somewhat dreamy eyed from the whole thing. Bunny looked smug, but whatever, it was a happy smug so it worked.

And then North had cleared his throat.

"Is there... something you two wish to tell us?" he asked.

Bunny raised his eyebrows. "You got a problem with the two of us being together?"

"You never even asked permission!" North all but wailed.

Jack made a rude noise. "Dude. I'm old enough to be your _father_."

It cracked everyone up, and after that it was obvious that, North's minor protest notwithstanding, they were fine with the relationship. Relieved, even, at least on Sandy's part. Jack almost wanted to ask the question, but didn't, because he was too comfortable leaning up against Bunny and basking in the distant warmth of the fire.

After Christmas came spring, and another Easter, and Jack helped out a little more than he'd done the previous years. Bunny tried to teach him how to decorate the eggs by hand, but they didn't have the time Jack took getting it right- although he could do fern patterns like no tomorrow- so he stuck with herding egglets (sheep were easier, and so were clouds) and making sure Bunny didn't starve to death.

And after Easter came Bunny's marathon sleeping session, which was kind of a nice break, not that Jack would ever say it. Just, sometimes it was nice to have time to himself, and with Bunny sleeping he felt comfortable going through the internet for more information on species dysphoria and more artwork, too. The artwork was mostly about the anthropomorphic rabbits, and for some reason the ones he saved into his favorites tended to be gray or white. No idea why, really.

Jack almost lost his computer to contractors renovating another burnt out building, and he actually stored it in the Warren for several days while Bunny slept and he scouted out a new base camp where he could get his wi-fi and electricity.

Of course, Bunny woke up and discovered the computer while Jack was out and about and couldn't immediately explain. But the Pooka took it well, and said if that was what kept Jack out of the Warren- if Jack wanted, Bunny could fix things so Jack could keep the computer in the burrow and not have to worry about it being discovered.

Jack had hesitated, but not very long. On the one hand, he kind of liked his independence. On the other hand, his independence had so far totalled a lot of sleeping in trees and snowbanks and burnt out buildings, and never quite enough food. There was something to be said for depending on another person.

"Sure," he said. "But it better not be anything complicated. I don't want to put you out or anything."

"You're a galah," Bunny had said, rather fondly, and between him and North it had taken half a day, and only that long because North had wanted to experiment and Bunny wanted tried and true. Jack actually had better internet connectivity in Bunny's Warren than he'd had anywhere else.

"So you made this yourself?"

"Cottontail, I watched them build the _first_ computer. Yeah, I made it myself."

Bunny chuckled, and nuzzled his chin into Jack's hair. "Well, I won't steal it from you. Those things are too basic for me."

Which led into a discussion of the computers- or super advanced computers- the Pooka had built before and during the Golden Age. Jack had considered a few tweaks he could do to his own machine, to try and nudge it closer to what Aster remembered, but that sort of technology was a few years off if humans went down that road at all, so he'd have to wait.

And Jack maybe sort of decided he had to get Bunny hooked on at least one computer game or something, just to prove he could. Even if it meant he had to share his creation with other people.

But not immediately, because there were other things to do together. Like get Jack moved all the way in.

Because it turned out he'd collected a lot of _stuff_ , but it was all spread out across America, little caches tucked away on high rise rooftops and in the back of caves and it was actually kind of astonishing now that he thought about it. Jack had always figured his nomadic lifestyle had prevented him from owning things, but it turned out that was wrong. So he'd had to rack his brain to try and remember where he'd hidden everything away, and then he'd had to go over all the junk to try and decide what was worth keeping and what was going to take a one-way trip to the nearest dump, and then there was the moment he realized he didn't know if he'd be sleeping in Bunny's nest or on the couch or-

Turned out he could hyperventilate after all.

"Jack? Would you- head down between your knees." Aster rubbed one hand between Jack's shoulder blades, and kept rubbing until Jack felt less like he was going to, you know, keel over.

"'m okay."

"Yeah, now. What was _that_ all about?"

Jack piled up his few belongings worth, you know, keeping. Everything else had either been stolen, messed up by animals, messed up by people, or messed up by weather.

Pity about those bellbottom jeans, but he hadn't ever worn them. They would have fitted North, and still have required a belt to stay on.

"I just... realized I'm living here now. Uh. Where will I sleep?"

Bunny snorted, and poked through the small pile. "You carve wood?"

"No? I mean, I've thought about it, off and on, but not really, they were just going to toss it in the trash." Jack caressed the wooden box with one hand. "Why?"

"Just wondered. I figured you'd sleep with me. Thought that was the idea of you moving in, after all," Bunny said, all but deadpan.

Jack made like a fish for a minute, opening and closing his mouth. "Sleep with or _sleep_ with?" he finally asked. "Because I do want- I just- it's just- but I really _do_ , and-"

"Shut your gob 'fore you hurt yourself." Bunny reached over and caressed Jack's cheek. "Hey. Cobber. It's all right. I understand."

Jack had stared into Bunny's eyes as hard as he could. "I really do want to," he said quietly. "I'm just..."

"Mite bit scared?"

He huffed. "Yeah. No. A little? It's... a lot. You know?"

The Pooka ground his teeth. "Yeah. Been a long time for me, too."

Jack decided not to mention he'd never _wanted_ to have sex before, never mind had it. "So, you mean actual sleep."

"And whatever else you feel up to doing."

It turned out sleeping curled up against Bunny's side was much more comfortable than he'd expected, which meant he slept deeper and dreamed more and a lot of them were the awkward kind of dreams where he woke up blushing and aching and occasionally to a laughing rabbit, and sometimes it was Bunny with that problem, or they'd have the same problem, and it was fun, it really was, just-

Awkward.

Though it was actually easier to get used to the whole thing than Jack had expected, from waking up hard and maybe sort of humping Bunny's thigh- or Bunny humping his thigh- to jerking himself off while being watched, or watching while Bunny jerked himself off, and maybe Jack really liked the way Bunny's erection looked. It was big and pink, and slightly curved, and unlike a human 'staff' it was broad at the base and narrowed to a blunt point- although the point was still pretty broad since, you know, the size thing. Jack did wish, in the back of his mind, that his was more like Bunny's, complete with furry sheath, but mostly he just wanted to touch it and see if the skin was as soft as Bunny's fur.

Surprisingly soft, he discovered a few weeks after moving in, after he'd gathered his courage and quietly asked permission (and if he'd had any doubts or considered the idea that maybe Bunny wasn't as keen on a human as Jack was on a Pooka, well, Bunny's response had been enthusiastic and almost embarrassingly loud) and then he had a hand on Bunny's cock and it was warm against his palm. Maybe it was his chilly fingers or just having someone else stroking him but Bunny didn't last very long after that.

Of course, once Jack started fumbling around with Bunny, there wasn't any reason for Bunny not to return the favor, and it was a little weird to have someone else touching him but it also felt really good and waking up in the morning (or going to bed in the evening) quickly became one of Jack's favorite times of day.

They did other things, of course, like continue with their dates (why stop when they were fun? And it was nice to get out of the Warren sometimes) and they had separate work and all, and Jack liked visiting North and the yeti and maybe try breaking through Phil's security while Bunny preferred chatting with Sandy and designing murals for Tooth's palace and they both liked different kind of 'alone' activities- Jack going to movies, which were hard on Bunny's ears, and Bunny going to art galleries and doing lots of sketch work and painting, which- Jack liked the end result, but he didn't like sitting around watching someone else scribble on the paper and stuff.

Being together was fun, was amazing, made him feel like his insides had been scooped out and replaced with light and joy, but you couldn't live your whole life feeling like that (at least, Jack couldn't) so they had their separate stuff, which maybe confused the other Guardians but also made them seem relieved, too.

"You know," Jack said, floating beside Sandy. "You're the only person I haven't talked to about me and Bunny yet."

Sandy looked away from the dreams he was sending out, and raised his eyebrows.

"It's just- I mean, I know you think it's good, but- I just want to make sure? He's your oldest friend-"

The Sandman laughed, his voice the rustle of wind through the trees below, the occasional car passing by on the street, the almost silent hum of electric lights. He showed several pictures of Tooth, and grinned.

"Yeah, okay- how long have- never mind. But still."

Sandy patted his shoulder. Bunny was happy with Jack, or at least that's what his images seemed to say. Why would he begrudge his friend that happiness?

Good point.

Jack and Bunny did spend a lot of time together, too, in the Warren. With both of them on their off season, Bunny started teaching Jack how to do art; turned out he was better with woodcarving and ice carving (especially ice carving) than pen and paper, but whatever, different strokes right? And it was kind of nice being able to do something better than the Pooka, since Bunny knew the basics about carving (this part of the knife's pointy, this part's dull, don't grab the sharp part) and North ended up teaching Jack. It certainly made gift giving a lot easier.

In return Jack showed Bunny some of his computer games, and explained how he'd gone about making the bank account (it had involved sneaking into a bank overnight, and borrowing some passwords, and a few other technically-not-legal things) so he could buy his games. Bunny had been impressed, but not at all interested in playing the games himself.

"I'll just watch," he'd said, eyes hooded and lips quirked up into a lazy smile and the bastard might or might not have knowingly used his bedroom voice, and Jack's character ran right off a cliff and died.

Of course, Bunny ended up watching when Jack did things other than play games, like when he went on the forums or when he checked out artwork- apparently Bunny's birthday was Australia day, which was in January, and then there was Christmas, and what else was he going to do with the money he found lying around on the ground? Might as well buy prints his boyfriend really, really liked, or other stuff like that.

Bunny kind of liked the idea of finding gift ideas online, though his version of it was less 'buy' and more 'be inspired and make his own', though Jack did notice he had trouble with keyboards and mice. His hands were big enough to make holding the mouse awkward, and typing? With his four thick fingers? Hunt and peck took on a whole new meaning.

"Basic, but-" Jack patted his computer tower, "reliable."

"Uh huh. How do you open the interweb?"

"Internet. Double click that icon."

It was inevitable that Bunny would decide to find inspiration for a gift meant for Jack, and inevitable that Jack couldn't be around every time Bunny used the computer. He hadn't worried, because for all his comments on how the Pooka's electronics had been so advanced Bunny kind of acted like that little old man just learning how to use a computer, and Jack's monster could handle just about any ill use, or Jack could always just fix whatever broke. So Jack had gone out without thinking, and Bunny used the computer when Jack was away since they both liked giving the occasional 'just because' gift to each other. Bunny eventually found Jack's favorites, and Jack supposed the reasoning made sense- if Jack saved it under the tab called _favorite_ , then he had to really like it. And the stuff under the sub-folder 'artwork'- well, Bunny preferred drawing pictures for Jack instead of making other things, although apparently he was a deft hand at making clothes, which was hilarious since he didn't wear any.

Which was how Jack came back from checking in on Sophie (her first sleep away camp) and Jamie (at something called 'Ranger' camp after a fairly popular children's book series) and found Bunny going through Jack's collection of anthropomorphic rabbit artwork.

"Oh God."

"Frostbite!" Bunny looked away from the computer screen, grinning. "Have fun?"

Jack just stared; at Bunny, at the very NSFW picture showing, back to Bunny, wondering if everything was going to blow up now or if it was a nightmare or what.

"Snowflake?" Bunny glanced at the computer, and half-laughed. "Found your favorites. You're not- embarrassed about these, are you? Some of them are pretty good."

Jack blushed. "I- well- I- you found- you _looked_ -?"

Bunny stared at Jack from under hooded eyes. "Did see a couple problems with them pictures, though," he said, and stood up. "Minor details, but fairly... important, considering the subject matter."

"Problems?" Jack squeaked.

"Mm. Clearly those artists never saw the real thing. Maybe you'd like to take a look?" Bunny waggled his eyebrows in invitation.

"Bunny!" Jack buried his overheating face in the Pooka's chest ruff, and half laughed. "Not the reaction I was expecting."

"Well," Bunny said, and chinned Jack thoroughly. "You're surprised I want to jump you? Haven't you been paying attention the last couple months?"

"You're a jerk."

"And you're me mate." At which point the lagomorph apparently tired of conversation and dragged a willing Jack back to the nest. Clothes went flying, though the bandolier with the egg grenades was treated a lot more gently.

After, Jack relaxed beneath Bunny's weight, and stroked his fingers idly through his ruff. "You're really... I mean, you don't think it's weird?"

"What?" Bunny pressed a kiss to Jack's bare shoulder. "Your porn collection? Nah, mate, she's apples."

"My-" Jack said, and giggled nervously.

"In fact," Bunny shifted closer, if that was even possible, and nuzzled Jack's ear. "It's rather complimentary, when you think about it. You could look at anything to get your rocks off- mountains and valleys, football, wrestling, human porn- and you choose art what looks rather like I do. And I can check how long something's been on your list."

Some of those pictures had been there for years before he and Bunny got together. Jack blushed again, and squirmed a little awkwardly. "Well. Uh. I like you."

"I can tell," Bunny said, and nudged his renewed interest into Jack's hip. Then proceeded to rub against Jack's renewed interest, which pretty much derailed the conversation right there.

Later, Jack was given a series of pictures where the focus was on Bunny, and Jack, and they were very NSFW and he didn't know whether to hit his boyfriend or kiss him so he did both.

"Why're they signed- what is that, E. something Bunnymund?"

"E. Aster Bunnymund, and because it's my name. Not that I use it these days." Bunny sighed.

"Why not?"

"Why bother? I'm the Easter Bunny. Everyone figures that's my name anyways- E. Aster? Sounds rather like, don't you think?"

Jack set the pictures aside, and pulled Bunny down for a still-awkward-but-getting-better kiss. "So what does the E stand for?" he asked, when they pulled apart.

"Embarrassing," Bunny growled, ears twitching. "Can we not talk about that?"

"Fine, fine... Aster." Jack grinned. Bunny pounced. And they spent some more time in the nest.

It was surprisingly easy to adjust to the whole "Bunny's real name is Aster" thing, since really, 'Easter Bunny' was a job title and Aster was a name, and it was really easy to remember the difference when Aster reacted very nicely to Jack calling his name. Sometimes they didn't actually leave the nest for an entire morning, though as the season turned to autumn Jack wasn't able to spend as much time in the Warren. It was great coming home to, you know, an actual home, and company, and to curl up with his head on Aster's shoulder and play with the long guard hairs in his chest ruff while muttering absently about what he'd done and other thoughts that ran through his head.

"Sometimes you make me so jealous," Jack admitted, half-asleep after frosting all of the American Midwest. "It's not fair."

"How do I make you jealous, Jackie?" Aster murmured in reply. "You're getting more believers all the time-"

"S'not that..." Believers were nice. But they didn't fill the ache in his chest, the result of his improper body. Being with Aster, pressed up against him, helped. Sometimes Jack even forgot he was supposed to be something else, other, because being with Aster was almost as good as being with Aster _and_ his proper species. Granted, he only had his imagination for how the later would feel, but it'd feel amazing, he just knew it.

"What's it, then?" The Pooka nudged Jack when he almost drifted off. "Mate?"

"Mm? Oh. You can shapeshift. Change anything. Be anything. It'd be nice, is all."

He fell asleep at that point, barely remembered the conversation in the next morning, but it figured Aster would remember and think it over and start watching Jack like a creepy stalker person. Which was actually rather fun, because Jack hadn't met an anthropomorphic rabbit stalker he didn't like (and didn't enjoy knocking into piles of fallen leaves for a bit of kissing and petting) and besides, it was _Aster_. Whatever he was thinking about that put that weird look in his eye, he'd share eventually.

He did, a few weeks later when the first snows were in and Jack could sit back and catch his breath before diving into, you know, the actual _winter_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay for more rambly Walls-of-Text Jack! Questions, comments, the review field is right down there...
> 
> So! NaNo update- my goal yesterday (Day seven) was 16,333. I hit 16,529. Sounds impressive, but to be fair, I'm actually editing my finished novel for NaNo instead of writing something new. (On the other hand, I hate re-writes and editing with a passion, which would be why Little Boy Blue still has horrible typos that haven't been fixed. -sweatdrop-)


	3. We Raise it up

"If you could be anything you wanted to in the world," Aster said, as they walked hand in hand along a river (one of many in this part of the world, so many that half of them were nameless) and ducked low tree branches. "What would you be?"

"Taller," Jack immediately answered.

"Seriously." Aster grinned, though, and squeezed Jack's hand. "Would you change your hair color?"

"No. I kind of like the white. And the blue eyes." He considered it for a moment. "Well, maybe if I went to a rave..."

"No raves for you," the Pooka deadpanned. "You're twitchy enough as is."

"I'll stick with my monster movies, thanks." Jack studied the water, and tapped his staff against a few rocks. The frost melted almost immediately, between the warm air- Aster's condition if they were going to walk next to water, it had to be warm water- and the constant mist. "I would be taller, though." Standing on his toes, of course, and rabbits had big hind feet so there'd be, what, another foot in height there?

"What else?"

Jack looked up at the sky, at the branches, at the birds flying through the air. "You know, a couple years back? I was at North's, and he mentioned this thing." Aster- he loved him, the Easter Bunny, every crabby and mock-grumpy inch of him, from his ears to his toes and all in between. If he couldn't tell Aster- and he had to tell someone, this someone, because he just... He just had to.

"Okay," Aster said, clearly not seeing the relation. "What?"

"This girl wrote to him. She wanted to be a cat, and I guess she was real old. Too old, really. He called it 'changechild'?"

The Pooka nodded. "I've heard of it." He stared at Jack, as though he was trying to draw a picture of something he'd never seen, and Jack was describing it in bits and pieces.

"I'd never... I'd never heard anyone else talk about that, feeling wrong in their own skin. Other than gender dysphoria, but... I'm a guy, I'm supposed to be a guy, it's just... the human part that feels wrong."

Aster was silent, and studied the ground while they walked. "What," he said, and paused. "What do you think you should be, then?"

Jack half-smiled. "Why don't you guess?"

"Not about this, Jackie."

Fine. Stick in the mud. "Rabbit." He shrugged, and looked at Aster sidelong. "It- I feel less wrong when I'm with you."

Aster nodded absently, clearly thinking it over. When they finished their walk, he kissed Jack, slow and sweet, and they retired to the Warren for the night.

That was the last chance Jack had to properly talk with Aster for the rest of the season. Winter was vicious that year, and Jack barely had time to _sleep_ , let alone check in on his kids or spend any time with his mate. Some days- he knew Mother Nature would never allow it, but she _was_ punishing humans for messing with her plans for the oil fields and oil wells and all that- but some days he really believed in global warming and a rapidly approaching ice age.

And then, just as winter started to settle down, the major rush to Easter started. Jack helped out as much as he could, but the bulk of the work was and always would be Aster's. The egg hunts went well, though, and Aster collapsed into sleep not long after getting back to the burrow. Jack swung around Tokyo, upgraded his computer, and caught up with all the stuff he'd missed on the forums and his games.

He did some cleaning, too, since Aster was asleep and the kitchen was getting a bit worn out. It was pretty easy to sand down the wooden countertops and put on a new coat of varnish. It was a little harder to fix up the shelves, but he managed with a little creativity and some string that looked like twine but was much, much stronger, more like steel links than anything. He also went through the pantry for stuff that had gotten shoved to the back, like the potato that had sprouted or the tomato that had kind of... melted.

Cleaning made him feel better; two parts because he couldn't really stand a mess, three parts instinct, he supposed. And it was nice doing things for Aster.

When the lagomorph woke up properly, Jack immediately pounced him. "I missed cuddling," he explained.

"Could've cuddled in my sleep," Aster protested, but not very strongly.

Jack just laughed and mock-chinned the Pooka. It wasn't real chinning, since he didn't have the scent glands there, but it felt nice and Aster seemed to like it.

He'd thought and thought all while Aster slept, and decided that if things started edging towards full sex complete with need for lube, he'd go for it. He _wanted_ , so very much, and he rather thought Aster wanted too.

Not just after waking up from a marathon nap, apparently, Jack assumed, since Aster was certainly up for a little fun but his hands didn't wander too much and he drowsed off immediately after. Jack cleaned them both up and headed out to check out a new indoor skating rink.

Aster stayed quiet for the next few days, almost a full week, often going out without Jack and maybe being a bit reserved when it came to the touching thing. Jack wasn't sure what was up, and wasn't sure if it was something he should ask about. He knew, since Aster had told him ages back, that the Pooka was the last of his kind; maybe it was just some moping about the death of his people. Jack would mope too, if he were the last human, except first he'd exact bloody, vicious revenge but he was pretty sure they weren't allowed to kill Pitch, something about a balance, which was annoying but then again, Jack wasn't allowed to kill some of the nastier winter spirits either, which also wasn't fair. Not like they did anything useful, and _definitely_ no one would miss them.

Jack spent his unexpected alone time either on his computer, avoiding the first of the North American summer heat, or at the North Pole, avoiding said summer heat by visiting North.

And maybe he wanted to talk with North about a few things, maybe thank the man for pointing him towards the answer to his confusion, because Aster had taken it actually really well, and the sky hadn't fallen, and it was the twenty-first century; no one would stone him for being gay or burn him for being a witch if he admitted he'd been born with his brain two degrees off from normal.

Besides, it had felt good, telling Aster. He knew North wouldn't take it badly, since all those kids wrote to him, and- and he just- he trusted them, with this.

And who knew, maybe North had a spell or something... Jack was a spirit, surely the rules were different for him?

North claimed to never be too busy for his friends, which was true right up until November where he turned into this scary Russian bear man who didn't speak any language other than growl and grumble and ran around with crazy eyes and hair that stood on end from how he raked his fingers through it. Since it wasn't November, was summer in fact, he welcomed Jack to the Workshop and dragged him off to one of the more comfortable sitting rooms, for traditional Russian dishes (Jack ate anything and everything so long as it went with a vegetarian diet) and vodka for North, cider for Jack.

He'd never tell North, but the cider was always the hard, alcoholic stuff the yeti made for themselves. Jack's grandmother had made something a heck of a lot stronger, that evaporated in the mouth (the joke at the time had been that the cider was made out of apples... _mostly_ apples...) and could've gotten a man drunk just from the fumes. He'd had his first taste of it when he'd been five or six or so, just like everyone else in the family, but he was out of practice with drinking so he wasn't about to get into any contests or anything. But it was pretty amusing to think that if he did, he'd land in third or second place or so, but probably not first.

Well, unless the other contestants were Norse. Those guys got _intense_ about their drinking.

"So, what brings you here, my boy?" North asked, with a pause for Jack's usual giggle. "Need more wood for carving?"

"No, no, I, uh, actually..." Jack cleared his throat, and took a drink of cider to try and help the conversation along. "I'm actually here to talk serious."

"You have noticed problem?"

"No. Not anymore. Not now, I mean." He huffed, and looked away. "You kind of helped me, back after I'd just become a Guardian. I wanted to thank you."

North blinked, and leaned forward. "I am happy to have helped, but- how?"

Jack glanced towards him, and away. "What do you know about species dysphoria?"

A lot, it turned out, thanks to the kids that wrote North asking to be turned into something else. "You have this?" North asked.

"Yeah. It- I did research, after you mentioned it, just as an aside from one of the letters, and it fit, you know?"

"Yes, I suppose. And you feel better now?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I know what I- what I feel I should be, even if I'm not, and things finally make _sense_ in my head, but at the same time I'm... not."

"Would it be rude to ask..." North trailed off, and took a sip of vodka, apparently needing the help with the serious conversation too.

"Nah, not rude at all. Rabbit."

"Like Bunny." North stared at Jack, level and serious.

"You know, Bunny's a Pooka- but yeah. Like him. Anthropomorphic."

North was silent for a few minutes, thinking it over, tilting his head back and forth as though rolling the thoughts around in his head. Finally, he finished off the vodka in his glass in one swallow, and pointed a finger at Jack. "Is being rabbit inside why you made couple with Bunny?"

"What? No! I'd never." Jack folded his arms, but didn't take off. He was a grownup, however he acted most of the time, and it was a reasonable question... he supposed. "It was- he's... _him_ , you know? I'd feel the same way if he were a cat or a dog or a shaved ape like you and me. Probably not if he were a glowing orb of light or plant monster or something, but mammal... Anyways. It was his personality first." Jack paused, and laughed self-consciously. "Okay, in the interests of full disclosure, it was the faces he made whenever I nailed him with a snowball _way_ back when I was first made a spirit. But then came the personality."

North nodded, and relaxed his shoulders. "Ah, good."

"Anyways." Jack looked away again. "I just wanted to say thanks, since if you hadn't said anything I probably wouldn't have figured it out yet."

"And you wonder if I have some spell to make you into rabbit like Bunny," North said. His smile was sad, when Jack twisted around to look at him, shocked. "Is what everyone like you wonders. I wish I could say yes."

"There... isn't? But I'm a spirit-"

"Is not because of mortal or spirit. Is because transformations- those transformations, from outside- are dark magic. Gray area, because your mind already says you are this animal, but still. Forbidden for us to use, Jack." North stared into the fire, and for the first time in a while looked old. "I am sorry."

Jack was disappointed, but at the same time, it made sense. Most spells that transformed someone got into the mind, too. He'd thought- but, well, forbidden was forbidden. It was one thing if he were the one breaking the rules, but he wasn't about to ask a friend to do that for him.

"Hey," he said. "It's okay." North still looked old, though, so Jack grinned and added, "Buck up, kiddo, it's not that bad."

"Hrmph. I am older than you are!" North fingered his white beard, and eyed Jack's hairless chin.

"Yeah, but you're really not, _junior_."

"What, you got cosmetic surgery?"

"Cold water treatments," Jack drawled, "shrinks wrinkles and rejuvenates the skin."

After speaking with North, Jack decided to talk to Tooth, only he saw Sandy next (and Aster, strangely, wasn't at home when he returned to the Warren. He didn't worry too much about it, except he kind of did, and he barely slept since he wasn't used to being alone in the nest, ever) so he hung out with the Sandman for a bit.

Sandy brought up Jack's species dysphoria on his own. "Who told you?" Jack asked. Sandy shrugged, which Jack supposed meant he'd figured it out on his own. Jack had to wonder just what had given him away, but it didn't much matter.

"I know, now, though," he said, and smiled. "And- it's nice, I guess. Bunny. He makes sense to me. Humans don't, always." Though that could have just as easily been his three hundred years of near solitude, able to watch relationships play out but never having one of his own.

Sandy asked Jack- with a few minor diversions to establish what a particular image referred to at the moment- if Jack had been attracted to Bunny before or after figuring out his mind was a rabbit.

"Before. I mean, I think I was... what, ten years a spirit when I first saw him? Nailed him in the back of the head with a snowball. Never saw a rabbit that big before." He'd been very childish then, all the knowledge of his short, mortal life, none of the experiences or maturity. "Up until recently, he'd always been this intense, cranky guy- and I don't know, Sandy, if not for Bunny I'd have said I was asexual or something. I never really cared about that sort of thing before."

Sandy nodded, and shrugged. He was a former star, after all. Emotions, yes, physical relations, no.

"What about you and Tooth?" They were together, Jack knew they were together, but- what gave?

Sandy raised an eyebrow, as though asking if Jack really wanted to know.

"Well, I don't need details, but- you're happy? Really happy?"

Sandy nodded, images of him and Tooth cuddling and preening each other swirling over his head. Well, good. "As long as you're happy. That's the important thing." Jack rolled onto his back on the dreamsand cloud. "Do you think we should find North a girlfriend? Or boyfriend, I guess?"

Sandy almost fell off his cloud laughing.

Aster still wasn't at home when Jack dragged himself to the Warren, so after some sleep he went back out, this time to talk with Tooth and maybe ask if she'd seen the wayward Pooka, since he'd apparently gone missing. Tooth wasn't out in the field, the way she sometimes was, and since Jack wasn't in any emotional distress she talked with him between directions to her fairies.

"He's been talking with me, or Sandy, recently," Tooth said, when Jack asked about Aster. "He's... Jack. You think you're supposed to be a rabbit?"

Bunny had told her? Jack hunched his shoulders, a little. "It's called species dysphoria," he said, and looked away.

"Oh, no, sweet tooth, no, its not- I don't think it's bad, and he didn't tell me." Tooth hugged him about the shoulders, quick and smelling a bit like patchouli incense. "He talked around it, but in a way that I could see the shape you know? He's not used to keeping secrets anymore. Maybe he never was."

Well, that felt... a little better, and might have been why Sandy figured it out too. "I guess. Just- he was talking to you?"

"You explained yourself?" Tooth asked. "You told him and explained?"

"Well, yeah." Jack frowned. "Why?"

Tooth sighed, touched down on the ground briefly because her wings apparently needed to droop. "Oh, Jack. For the Guardian of Hope, Bunny tends to be very pessimistic."

She didn't tell him much, certainly no more than Jack hadn't already known- Aster had had a mate, back before the Pooka genocide, and then he'd had a few lovers after arriving on Earth, but they obviously hadn't lasted and the breakups hadn't been entirely amenable. Those particular spirits had faded away from lack of belief, while Aster had stayed.

"He's just... worried. He knows you didn't fall in love with him because of his shape, but then he keeps coming up with these scenarios and he's just gotten a bit dispirited," Tooth said. "You should talk to him."

"Yeah," Jack said, roughly, throat tight. That was the thing about hope, he supposed; you _hoped_ the things you dreaded weren't true. "He's a very silly bunny, isn't he?"

Tooth hugged him again. "He should be back home by now."

He wasn't, as it turned out, but Jack used the time wisely. He cleaned up a bit, not that there was a lot of mess, and then started cooking. He pulled out all the stops, too, from a chilled cantaloupe soup to start with to pumpkin spice muffins for dessert. He even made fresh lemonade, even though he didn't normally make drinks from scratch. Those he preferred to get from the yeti up at North's, frozen so he could thaw the mix out and add water.

Aster showed up just as the muffins were ready to come out of the oven (but obviously too hot to eat- and no, Jack couldn't cool them down with his frost, not if they were supposed to taste good or anything.)

"Jack?" Aster stopped short in the doorway, gaze flicking from the table set with the good plates and with an actual tablecloth, to the food waiting on the counter, to Jack, and all the way back to the plates and tablecloth. "What, ah, what's all this?"

Jack shrugged, and dusted off his hands. "Feels like we haven't seen each other for half a year." Which wasn't all that inaccurate, really. "Thought we could eat something special."

"Oh." Aster crept in, looking strangely tense and a little wary, and at the same time- that same look in his eye whenever Jack started messing around with the Burrow, tiding things up and putting things away and repairing whatever got broken before Aster could notice or take care of it himself. That look was typically a prelude to a stint in their nest, though Jack had a feeling that this time, dinner and conversation would go first.

It did. Aster sat down, and Jack served them both the soup. He'd chosen the meal to have all of Aster's favorites, and if the dinner wasn't candlelit that was because both of them were uncomfortable with open flame. All of the lighting in the Warren was either super technological stuff that copied sunlight almost perfectly, or- in the burrow- old-time miner's lanterns, where the flame was surrounded by a bubble of glass and water to magnify the light. Jack had turned the lamps on low for the atmosphere. Two of the five in the kitchen had gone out thanks to his fumbling.

They talked briefly about the stuff they'd been doing- Jack had found a new computer game he enjoyed, Aster had visited a few plant shows to try and decide if he wanted to expand his garden again- but Jack turned it quickly to their relationship.

"I was talking to Tooth," he said. "And Sandy."

"Yeah." Aster swallowed, and looked down at his plate. Toyed a bit with the food and his fork. "They both tracked me down to mention it. Jack, I-"

"Hey." Jack covered Aster's hand with his own. "I love you. You know that, right? No worries about that running through your head?"

"No." Aster shook his head. "No worries about that. I love you too."

"But you've got some concerns?" Concerns were natural, Jack supposed, even without Aster's history and Jack's species dysphoria.

Aster sighed. "Yeah." He paused to eat a few bites of dinner. "It's- you didn't decide to go for me because I look like a rabbit, did you?"

Jack blinked. "What?" Yeah, North had asked, but- "No. It made it easier 'cause your instincts match rabbits, some, but- no. I decided to go for you because- because it was fun to prank you!"

Aster blinked, and then all but rolled his eyes. "Ya were pulling my pigtails."

"Metaphorically, and yeah, of course. You make the best faces," Jack said, and grinned. "Especially when I get you with a snowball."

"Not inside the burrow, Jackie."

"Does that mean its okay if its outside?"

"No."

Jack grinned, and took a few bites of dinner himself. "And you're wondering why I fell for you?"

"Yeah, well. So I didn't catch your eye for my figure, huh?"

"Nah. I don't know what it is, but I never really cared about physical stuff before." Jack shrugged. "I mean, it never made sense to me. Why people would go all stupid over someone they didn't even know, just because he or she was so pretty. Well, maybe subconsciously? Since, you know, you always made sense to me even when humans didn't."

Aster looked smug. "So it was my personality. Guess I can't be that much of a grump after all."

"Well, you are a grump," Jack said. Aster scowled. "But that's not all you are. And even when you're grumpy it can still be, you know, fun."

"At least you appreciate my good points."

"There's a lot of them."

They finished eating, and retired to the small couch with the muffins and the rest of Aster's concerns. Jack snuggled up to his mate, more interested in the play of sleek fur over long lines of muscle than his muffin, which was why Aster managed to steal it. He huffed, but didn't try to take it back.

"So how does it all work? You... think you're an animal, inside?"

Jack hummed, and stroked along the top of Aster's thigh. "No more than you. I mean, from what I know, personally, and what I've researched, it's more 'my body is wrong' and less 'my mind is wrong'. I've read blogs written by people who say they feel phantom wings or tails or whatever, like an amputee might feel their missing foot itching away? I don't. I just- I look down, and it always takes me a second to remember that yeah, those are my feet, even though they don't look right."

"And... instincts?"

"Well, I did start courting you entirely by accident," Jack said, as dry as he could. "But no, I don't know, it's... I don't know if it's instinct, but the various behaviors make _sense_ to me- except for the urine thing, that I don't get."

"What urine thing?" Aster wondered. Jack mentally blessed whoever and whatever was responsible for Pooka not having the urine thing like earth rabbits did.

"Never mind, it's just very not something a sentient creature would do. Unless they had a kink, and I don't. Anyways. Like I said, the behaviors make sense. I don't know if it's instinctually making sense, or whatever. Maybe."

Aster ran his fingers through Jack's hair, claws scraping over his scalp and making his skin tingle. "And you don't have a fur fetish?"

Jack raised his eyebrows and stared up at the Pooka. "Wouldn't it be a good thing, if I did? Since, you know..." He stroked along Aster's thigh again. He sighed, and kept stroking, trying to ease Aster's expression from the tight and almost angry one to something calmer. "I don't know about fetish... Do most men have a boob fetish?"

"Wha- Jack!"

"Well that's how it is!" He frowned. "It's just- the fur's a part of you. And I like how it feels. But if you didn't have fur for whatever reason, I wouldn't stop liking you or stop wanting to have sex or anything. It'd just be different."

Aster seemed to chew that over for a minute, before relaxing. Jack was relieved, really and truly. He didn't like the thought that Aster had been worrying about all of this for months now.

"And this isn't some sort of fling," Aster murmured, half certain, half as though he were trying to convince himself.

"Definitely not a fling," Jack said, and grinned up at the Pooka. "I'm monogamous, Cottontail, whatever actual rabbits be like. And I've _never_ felt like this for anyone else, not ever. You're stuck with me."

"Good." Aster pulled Jack up for a kiss. "You're stuck with me too."

That wasn't the end of it, Jack knew; they'd only addressed Aster's biggest concerns, not the little niggling stuff, but whatever, the conversation had been started and once the big stuff was out of the way, they were able to talk about the little- like 'how jealous is jealous' and 'please tell me you don't want to wear a costume- I'm sorry but I wouldn't be able to keep from laughing' and 'Jack, _why_ do you want me to get a surfboard, I'm _not_ swimming out to the middle of the ocean with you just to make out, don't you know there's _sharks_ out there?' and stuff like that.

Jack stopped dropping hints about that fantasy, but whatever, it wasn't like it was that big of a deal. Just him, Aster, a borrowed surfboard and making out on the beach. Aster would make a very nice surfer in his opinion, whatever the Pooka said about salt and fur, but he could live without easily enough. He had other fantasies too- which he mentioned to Aster, and then had to assure him that no, none of them involved animal role-play or anything like that.

"I have thumbs, you have thumbs, we both can speak- why would I want to do anything that pretends none of that is possible?"

But ideas, like making out in a tree (surprisingly difficult), that was fine. And it turned out Aster had things he wanted to do, too, although Jack wasn't sure what to think when it turned out one of those things involved painting on Jack. The end result was actually rather pretty, when it was all over; traditional dots and spirals and lines and what all else from several different cultures, and after it dried Aster dragged him off to the nest.

They still hadn't gone all the way, but in the interest of their being mature adults and talking about things, Jack brought it up.

"I mean, I enjoy this, don't get me wrong," he said, and stroked down along Aster's flank. They both got very touchy-feely in the afterglow, legs tangled together, hands stroking over skin and fur just for the contact, not necessarily to arouse, chest to chest and stomach to stomach and close enough to feel each other's body heat or minor chill, whichever. "But don't you want to go further?"

"Yes," Aster said, voice raw with need and desire. "Very much."

"So why-?"

The answer was clear, just from Aster's expression. He was nervous, which, fair enough, so was Jack. "What, you want our first time together to be perfect?" Jack peppered kisses on Aster's muzzle, and got a bit distracted from the feeling of whiskers and fur against his lips, but whatever, he had experience focusing even when things were getting real good. "Technically, it wouldn't be our first time by what, a year? Two years?"

"I just want it to go well. And I don't- I don't want to hurt you." Aster pressed his forehead to Jack's. "I'm bigger 'n you."

"Yeah, I like that part."

The Pooka nibbled at the top of Jack's shoulder. "I have claws."

"I have ice."

"And you wonder why I want to take time."

When he put it like that, Jack could maybe see his point. Didn't mean he wasn't going to plan for things to go all the way- optimism and hope and all that- but he wouldn't press too hard. Well. Not for a few months, because after a certain point- really, how long had they been together now? He was putting his money on two years, maybe two and a half- the hesitancy was just annoying instead of endearing.

They went forward with the actual sex just before Jack's work started up in autumn, both of them dosed with "Cupid's super-eight lust formula number one" after Jack called the former deity a Hallmark Gift Card. To be fair, Cupid did make sure Jack was overcome with lust for Aster, and vice versa, but waking up after forty-eight hours of blank, sated and sore, kind of panicked them both; Aster didn't touch Jack for a week afterwards, too freaked out by what he'd done to Jack (and had done to him- Jack couldn't imagine he'd bottomed the entire time, and hey, his fantasies had also involved topping) to feel comfortable with so much as touching Jack's shoulder, and Jack was maybe a bit freaked out too because he didn't complain overly much. Though after a week, he did all but force Aster into the nest for some sleep, curled up next to each other. They talked; finally they managed to boil the whole experience down to the magical equivalent of being blacked out drunk and that, at least, managed to settle their stomachs.

And then, since it had to be addressed, they told the others what Cupid had done and then, very nicely and with as many edged weapons as possible, explained to Cupid exactly why he was never, ever going to do that to anyone ever again.

Politely, of course.

It wasn't easy, but after that Jack insisted they try sex with full awareness and as much lube as Aster felt they needed. He bottomed the first few times, both of them fumbling with a combination of nerves and desire and the occasional burst of laughter (or maybe that was just Jack- yup, just Jack) and general awkwardness as they figured out how to make each other scream and sigh with this new level of intimacy.

Jack turned the tables on Aster one evening, to both of their satisfaction. After that, while they didn't go all the way every night- sometimes _sleeping_ in the same nest was difficult, as Jack went out and about on his autumn duties- it was frequent enough to satisfy. Jack figured they'd have sex (or mate, as Aster referred to it) more frequently come summer, considering how busy they were otherwise, but he didn't mind the time to get used to it all. Sex, as much as just _being_ with Aster always did, helped his feelings of being in the wrong body; it was still wrong, but it didn't hurt as much as it had before he'd fallen in love.

In fact, he thought one night, hovering somewhere between earth and sky, if things lasted forever like this he wouldn't complain too much. Sure, he'd never be a rabbit himself (with long legs and fluffy coat, and tall enough to not feel quite so small next to Aster- although, honestly, he liked it when Aster covered him completely, head to toe, loved how safe and warm he felt, so maybe he was okay with being shorter after all) but he had everything else he'd ever wanted- family, and a beloved, and people who saw him.

Jack smiled up at the moon, and so never noticed the darkness gathering behind and beneath him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More rambling and a cliffhanger, oh no! And in NaNo news, yesterday's word goal was 32,667, and I hit 32,860. It is now time to move to the next part of the plot, AKA "infiltrate the enemy's HQ and not get caught 'cause torture ruins your day."
> 
> Jack? Maybe- maybe you should take Shay's advice? Getting caught is _bad_.


	4. In The Spring I Shed my Skin

"Uh." Could someone turn the bongo drums off? His head _hurt_. Jack cracked one eye open, hissed at the pain, and clenched it shut again.

Ouch. Very much ouch. He tried to curl up around the pounding in his temples, and- couldn't. He was, what, tied down? He tried to pull against the bonds, but didn't know if he was even capable of putting any strength into his struggles. His hands and feet were numb, and his arms and legs felt like so many limp noodles.

No help for it but to open his eyes. Not like there was anything to hear or smell, he was pretty sure he'd have noticed before now.

The light was as low as it could go and still have things visible, he realized, but even that made his eyes hurt. Someone had hit him with little regard for whether he'd wake up again or not. Jack looked around, neck muscles twitching every time he turned his head even a little, and scowled. Pitch's lair. There was no mistaking the way the architecture had been built on optical illusion lines, the gloom, or the- oh yeah- nightmares clustered about in the deepest shadows.

And, he realized, he was tied down. The straps at his wrists and ankles were leather, black and cracked a bit. If he'd been able to do more than squirm, he might even have been able to break them with just a little application of strength. Of course, this being Pitch's lair, things weren't always what they seemed. The leather would probably end up stronger than iron chains.

He tried anyways, but wasn't able to move his arm even a little. Jack scowled, and then rolled his eyes. Why was he trying to move when he should be trying to _freeze_ things?

Jack concentrated, but- nothing. Not even the thinnest layer of frost. His magic was there, he could feel it in his core, but- he couldn't bring it out.

That wasn't good.

Where was his staff? He didn't think it'd been broken again, but the last time he hadn't been able to do any magic, it'd been snapped in two.

"Looking for this?" Pitch stepped out of the shadows, eyes hooded and Jack's staff in hand.

Of. Course. Jack tensed. His staff was still in one piece, but if Pitch had it, that certainly wouldn't last very long. "Pitch. Love what you've done with the place, I think the layout is even more useless than before."

"Is that so?" The Nightmare King showed all of his teeth in an expression _no one_ would mistake for a smile. "Fortunately I did not bring you here to view the decor."

"Good, 'cause it sucks."

Pitch changed his grip on the staff to a two-handed one. Jack flinched, even though he knew that was _just_ what the Boogieman wanted. Pitch laughed at his reaction, of course, and went back to the one-handed grip and not-smile.

"Jack, Jack, whatever shall I do with you?" Yellow eyes seemed to glow, a very disturbing effect considering the situation. "You're all tied up, and nowhere to go. Guardian of Fun, aren't you?" Pitch reached over and traced one long finger down the center of Jack's chest. "Perhaps I should _play_ with you."

"Maybe you should fuck a blender," Jack muttered, and glared.

"Please. Don't be crude."

Jack settled for glaring with as much venom as he could. He was breathing faster, he realized, heart racing, a natural and understandable side effect of being trapped in Pitch's lair with a concussion while strapped spread-eagled to a table. At least he still had his clothes.

"Now, I'd love to just sit and chat," Pitch said, and handed the staff off to a nightmare. Jack glowered at it, at Pitch, at the whole damn lair. "But my sweet little minions just told me your annoying friends are waiting in the other room, and I don't want to be a rude host."

"Pitch, you brought me- us- here without cookies or tea, that's rude whatever else you do."

The Nightmare King clicked his tongue, like a fussy grandmother. "Don't be like that. One must make do, you know."

Pitch waved a hand, gathering shadows to curl around his fingers. "Now, there's just one little thing- hold still, I'd hate to hurt you." And the shadows turned into a knife with a jagged blade. Black, of course.

Jack eyed it warily. "Just what're you planning?"

Pitch hooked two fingers in the collar of Jack's sweater. "Nothing much, but-" He started cutting through the fabric, looking two seconds away from giggling. "There."

He'd cut Jack's sweater open down the front, so his chest was bare. He didn't touch Jack's pants or try to remove the remains of the sweater, a fact Jack was very much thankful for. The blade vanished back into wisps of shadow, so apparently the goal wasn't to immediately cut Jack open and start draining his blood. That would come later, Jack was sure.

"Now you're ready," Pitch cooed. Jack hissed at him. "Don't do that, you sound like the rabbit."

"There's a reason for that," he mumbled, and pinched his lips shut when Pitch raised a non-existent eyebrow in question.

"Well, I'm sure you'll tell me in time," Pitch said, this time sounding like an affable gentleman and not a psychotic fear-monger. "But time's a-wasting, so let's go!"

The table was wheeled. Jack tugged on the straps at his wrists, again, and managed to get a little more movement from his arms, but the bonds held.

Pitch walked ahead of the table, which was either moving on its own, or was being pulled or pushed some way Jack couldn't see. Considering who was responsible for the situation, the shadows moving the table seemed like a reasonable assumption.

The wall ahead seemed to melt, and vanish. Jack craned his neck to try and look behind him, to see if it reformed, but couldn't quite get his neck at the right angle. And the attempt hurt, too.

When he looked ahead, again, it was an entirely new part of Pitch's lair. There were nightmares, again, including the one holding Jack's staff in its mouth. And four hanging cages, with enough magic on the bars he could feel the hum in his teeth. The cages were occupied; from left to right Sandy, Tooth, North, and Aster. Sandy didn't seem able to touch the metal, never mind get his sand past the bars, though he was trying with everything that he had. It wasn't actually possible to see him, the whirling sand blurred things too much.

Tooth, North, and Aster could touch the bars, but it looked like they didn't have their weapons. Pitch must have taken the knives and bombs they liked to carry, somehow, or they'd been ambushed without their weapons, or some combination thereof. Tooth didn't look any different, a bit ruffled and very angry, but North looked strange without his heavy, red overcoat. And Aster- without his bandolier, his leg wraps, or his arm guards, he looked softer than usual. Jack was actually kind of used to that look on the Pooka, but it was a typically private one.

Pitch leered at the captive Guardians, and then gestured at Jack. "Get a good look," he cooed. "I assure you, this is the last time you'll ever see Jack Frost look like this."

Aster's eyes widened, but he didn't make the mistake of asking just what Pitch planned. Jack could see the Pooka's chest heave as he breathed deeply, filling his lungs and oxygenating his muscles.

Could Aster break the bars with brute force? Jack knew that North couldn't, but Aster had grown up on a planet with something like two and a half times Earth's gravity. Sure, Aster had adjusted, but the difference between Earth and lost Gallifrey was part of the secret to his greater than expected strength.

He probably could break the bars, Jack decided, if only because of hysterical strength. It would take time, though. Time Pitch would have to- do whatever he was planning to do.

Jack licked his lips, and did his best to smile for Aster. And then for the others. There wasn't any hiding his trembling, though, or the gooseflesh that raised all the tiny hairs on his arms and pebbled his nipples. He was afraid.

"Why?" North growled. He looked angry, with an edge of fear. "Why do this?"

Pitch shrugged, and stepped back into view. "Oh, it's just a little present for the Easter Bunny." This time it was a real grin, but nasty. "I heard you got a new lover," he said, talking to Aster. "Naughty, naughty- we go so far back, I'm surprised you forgot to tell me!"

"When I get out of this," Aster growled.

"Oh, but you're not going to." Pitch tapped a bar. "This is a spell I perfected in the Dark Ages-"

"Uh," Jack said. "You do know that historians all agree that the Dark Ages actually, you know, weren't? That's a term coined by some guy cranky the Romans all kicked the bucket. To be honest, since taxation and slavery-"

"Shut up!" Pitch whirled on Jack, and gestured to the nightmare holding the staff. "Don't speak about things you know nothing about!"

"You started it!"

Pitch took the staff from the nightmare, and caressed it, his long fingers sliding over the wood in a disturbing manner. "Shut up. Unless you want me to break it again?"

Jack's fingers twitched. "Not like it stopped me before," he said, absurdly proud of how his voice barely shook.

"True," Pitch murmured, and tossed the staff aside. "Which means I'll just have to get _creative_."

Oh. Creative was bad. Jack didn't like the sound of creative.

Pitch all but _skipped_ out of view again. Jack tested his strength against the bonds, but they continued to hold. He eyed the others, but they were having about as much luck as he was- none. Aster clawed at the bars in a frenzy, but his claws didn't so much as scratch the metal.

Jack checked the position of his staff. Just a little too far out of reach, for everyone. Unless Sandy could get his sand through the bars, but that still looked like a big 'no'.

"Hey, North?" He tilted his head, and frowned. "What's on my neck?"

The Russian pulled at the bars, before shaking his head. "A collar," he spat. "Probably magic."

Probably why Jack couldn't do any magic, though people said a lot about assuming things. "Okay," Jack breathed.

Pitch came into view again, holding- something. It looked like a cross between a telescope without a supporting tripod, a scepter, and the contents of a princess obsessed little girl's jewelry box. There were gemstones that glittered like fakes. There was metal that shined like tinsel and foil. It was very big, and very ugly.

"Did a dragon vomit that up?" Jack wondered.

"Hardly. I got it from the dwarves." Pitch caressed the whatever-it-was lovingly. "Magic, of course."

"No," Aster growled. He sounded not very sane, and he looked... angry. Very angry. The fur along his shoulders and down his spine bristled like razors, his lips were wrinkled back from his blunt teeth, and his pupils were so constricted they weren't visible. Jack hadn't ever seen him like that, though the others had occasionally spoken of what Aster got like on chocolate- rage personified. That sounded about right, though obviously Aster hadn't eaten any dubious substances; he only had two arms.

"With this treasure, I can turn any one of you into a helpless little animal." Pitch swung the thing in a slow arc, first at the caged Guardians, and ending with it pointed at Jack. "Perhaps a squirrel, perhaps a fragile little songbird- and then, well, I got myself some new _toys_ to try out."

The way he said that, Jack figured Pitch meant wire clippers and branding irons. And he also didn't much like the idea of being turned into a squirrel.

"Perhaps you'll turn into a helpless little bunny... Like a little Pooka kit." Pitch lowered the ugly thing, so as to free one hand. He stroked Jack's hair, chuckling a little when the winter spirit pulled away as best he could. "What do you think of that, Bunnymund? Your lover turned into a helpless kitten, and me with my nightmares and my fearlings?"

Aster's response was a low snarl that sent chills up Jack's spine.

Pitch waved one hand, and lifted the ugly thing up again. "Oh, what do you know? Now, hold still Jack... as if you have a choice..."

Jack didn't actually see what the artifact thing did. All of a sudden everything burned, like that last, fatal shock of falling into the frozen lake. He screamed, voice spiraling higher and higher until it broke. His bones melted like wax, his flesh twisting and pulling into a new shape. Something grabbed his face and pulled, shifting his skull and it felt like his eyes were going to pop right out and-

And then the pain got _worse_ and he couldn't do anything but try to scream.

And then it was over.

Jack gasped for breath. He was- on the floor. Pitch must have cut the straps holding him to the table. Either that or he'd thrashed so hard the leather snapped. Either way- on the floor. The floor was surprisingly comfortable, and cool against his cheek, chest, and hip.

Things felt different. They were supposed to, he thought. He'd been turned into an animal or something. So of course his feet would feel bigger, and he supposed fur was better than feathers, though he'd never mention it to Tooth.

Someone was laughing. Several other people were shouting. It was all very loud, and he pressed his ears flat against the back of his head to try and muffle the noise.

He cracked an eye open, but the expected stab of pain never came. He opened both eyes, and did his best to look around without moving, just in case Pitch thought he was unconscious.

His field of vision appeared to be wider, though since half of what he could see was floor and the other half was a part of the space without Guardians, Pitch, or Nightmares that wasn't as useful as he could have hoped. The dim light seemed to illuminate more, or his eyes were better adjusted now, because he thought he could see hints of color even in the deeper shadows. And smell- his nose twitched as he breathed slow and careful, picking up scents of stone and dust, fear, sweat, something musky that made him think of horses, and more he couldn't identify. He didn't know if touch had changed, but hearing definitely had; even with his ears pressed back, everything still seemed a shade too loud.

Jack closed his eyes to mentally gather his strength, and then struggled up onto all fours. It felt natural to stand that way, which he supposed went with the transformation. Yet- it felt like he could stand up on his hind legs and balance perfectly fine that way, too. There was something about how his hips felt, to him, that seemed similar to how he'd felt as a human. His center of balance, too.

What had he turned into, a small bear? Bears stood and walked around on their hind legs, didn't they?

He glared at Pitch, who didn't seem nearly as oversized as Jack had expected. So he hadn't turned into something small, then. That was good.

Pitch looked almost rapturous. "Oh, this is wonderful, perfect! Here I thought things would be good enough if you looked like a kitten, but this is better! What do you think, Bunnymund?" Jack almost flinched back from the sight of Pitch's teeth. Almost. "It will be like seeing your family die all over again!"

Aster screamed something in one of his dead languages, but Jack barely paid him any mind. Instead, he looked down at his hands.

At his paws.

They looked right, he realized. There were five fingers on each paw, the fingers a little narrower than Aster's, but thicker than they'd been as a human. His fingers were shorter, too, his having lost what looked to have been a knuckle joint each- that was going to make using a keyboard and mouse harder. He'd probably have to buy special versions or something.

His paws- hands were a better word, he decided, since he still had opposable thumbs, thank God- were covered in a thick layer of short, white fur, everywhere but the pads on his palms and the bottoms of his fingers. The fur continued up his wrists, got a bit thicker, a bit longer on his arms, all the way up to his shoulders and- so far as he could see- all over the rest of his body. His clothes had torn even more from the changes in his skeletal structure and muscles, and the rags hung awkward and strange against his new fur.

He managed to balance well enough to lift one hand to his face, to feel the changes to his skull. He had a blunt muzzle, and when he ran his tongue over his teeth, they were all flat, no longer quite so uniform. Those were two buck teeth if he'd ever felt them, and considering how often he and Aster kissed, he'd felt buck teeth with his tongue a lot. The shape of his skull around his eyes seemed to have shifted, no doubt partially responsible for his wider field of vision, and he had two long ears on top of his head, instead of two round ones at the sides of his head.

"I'm... a rabbit?" he asked, staring at his hand again. Anthropomorphic, from the size and the fact that he had hands with opposable thumbs instead of being, say, five pounds of fluff. That and his mind didn't seem to have changed, except-

Except things felt _right_ now. He didn't feel like his body was fitting wrongly anymore. He looked up again, from Pitch, to the other Guardians, to Aster. Aster looked wretched, like he'd just seen something wonderful, but knew it was going to be torn away and he couldn't do anything about it.

Jack had to look away, because that expression was just too painful to look at for long. He settled for glaring at Pitch, his new hackles standing on end.

Pitch, for his part, was grinning like a child on Christmas Day with a massive haul of presents under the tree. "Well, well," he said, all but purring. "Would you like to get the hysterics out of the way? Or- no? I suppose you think that this artifact could change you back. Normally, you'd be right."

Pitch smashed the device down onto the floor, breaking it into several pieces. "However, now you're wrong!"

Jack's lips parted, and he stared at the broken pieces of ugly artifact with surprise. The change was now _permanent_?

"So, what should we start with? Shall we see if you can run from my nightmares? Or shall I find my old ra-ack!"

Jack wobbled a bit, but it was somehow easy to stay upright when he was hugging Pitch. "Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" He shoved Pitch away, and staggered several steps before falling over. His hip and shoulder hurt where they'd banged into the floor, but he was really too happy to care. "Thank you!"

He wanted to jump about the room, but he couldn't even stand up. Instead he absently clawed at the cloth collar, his claws catching on the threads and then the thing snapped, just as he caught hold of his staff. "Thank you!"

Frost immediately started spreading across the floor. Jack giggled as fog began to condense in the air. "Thank you!" he said, again, and lifted the staff. The fog turned into snow, falling without a source. The flakes glowed blue, and sparkled faintly where they touched down; the floor, the cages, the nightmares, Pitch.

"Happy flakes for everyone!"

Pitch started giggling, even as he scrambled backward and stared at Jack in horror.

Jack got back up onto all fours- all threes, technically, since he had hold of his staff in one hand- and shuffled awkwardly to the cages.

"Aster!" he squeaked. "Aster, look, I'm- North! Lookit me! Tooth, do you see my ears? And my fur! And Sandy, Sandy, look, I'm a rabbit!"

Tooth shot him a look, and then glared at North. "Don't you have _lock picks_ or something?"

"Oh? Oh! Maybe..." North immediately started patting at his pockets, frowning. "Ah, here, will do just as well." It was a small ice carving pick, Jack noticed absently, but he couldn't bring himself to care very much. Instead, he swung his staff through the air, creating yet more happy flakes until it looked like there was a veritable blizzard in Pitch's lair, flashes of blue sparkles everywhere.

He looked over when North swung the cage door open and stepped down. "Oh, hey, that's cool," he burbled. "North, look!"

"I see, I see." North moved over to Aster's cage, and patted the air. "Calm down, Bunny, you will be out soon as I can."

"Hurry," Aster hissed, fluffed out. His eyes bulged, pupils still shrunk down to the size of pinpricks.

"Oh wow," Jack said, trying to sit up on his haunches and epically failing. He tumbled down onto his back, giggling. At least it hadn't hurt that badly. "I think I can count your eyelashes, my eyes are so much better now!"

He looked over to one side, where a nightmare had collapsed. The creature was either convulsing or laughing, so hard it was starting to come apart, melt into a formless blob of black sand. Well, that was one way to defeat a nightmare, he supposed.

North swung the door to Aster's cage open. Jack grinned when his mate suddenly loomed over him, then reached up and tangled his fingers in Aster's ruff. "Hi."

The happy flakes that hit Aster's muzzle, bursting into blue sparkles, had apparently taken the edge off of his panic. Aster smiled faintly, and gathered Jack into his arms. Like this, Jack realized, he was taller- though still something like a foot shorter than Aster was. "Hey yourself," Aster murmured into Jack's ear.

Aster helped Jack walk over to the cages, where North worked first to free Tooth, then Sandy. The tiny ice carving tool had never been meant for lock picking, so it took time. Practice did seem to speed things up though, Jack thought, his giddy delight fading slightly as his head started hurting again. It certainly took North less time to free Tooth than it had to free Aster, and comparatively Sandy was out in no time at all.

"Right," Aster said, voice dipping low and growly. Jack nuzzled his mate's fur, and breathed in the scent of a healthy, male Pooka. Between the voice and the scent, his brain got a little fuzzy. "We have to get out of here. Jack-"

"When we get home," he said huskily, "I'm going to do you _so_ hard."

Aster's jaw dropped, and his eyes went hazy. "Uh. Yeah?"

"Oh yeah." Jack reached up and caressed Aster's shoulder. "Several times. Have to try out the new equipment." He waggled his eyebrows- did he still have eyebrows, like Aster did, or- and grinned.

"That was more information than I wanted," North muttered.

Tooth nodded, and looked around. "Pitch! He's getting away!"

Aster chittered, and held Jack closer. And then snorted. "Don't think he can do much with that giggle fit," he muttered.

Jack twisted around to look. Huh, apparently his spine was more flexible like this. Pitch was, indeed, crawling away; laughing so hard he apparently couldn't stand. Despite the wide grin, he looked upset and more than a little freaked out. Jack considered the happy flake blizzard, and mentally shrugged. His flakes normally couldn't force people into being happy, but so many of them at one time apparently had effects he hadn't expected.

"And we don't have weapons," Tooth pointed out, before glancing at Sandy. "Alright, the _rest_ of us don't have weapons. Happy?"

Sandy nodded, practically beaming. He sobered quickly enough, and looked around. Then he pointed to the far side of the room.

Aster looked up at the falling happy flakes, and sighed. "Can you turn 'em off, Frostbite?"

Wow, fur on fur was an even better feeling than fur on skin. "Nope!"

Sandy created a floating umbrella-type shield overhead. Jack stuck his tongue out at it.

"Let's go," Aster said, and picked Jack up bridal style. Jack squealed, and nuzzled against Aster's neck.

"Hey," he whispered, grinning. "Look at me."

"Hey yourself," Aster whispered, and nuzzled him back.

* * *

Jack stretched out on his back, fur sliding oddly ( _perfectly_ ) against the sheets. "I can think of better reasons to stay up all night," he murmured.

Aster flipped the lock on the door. "No, mate, we're not rooting all night."

"Bet I could, now." He snuck a quick peek at the mirror over the dresser, and grinned at his reflection. Appearance-wise, he resembled Aster more than, say, a forest bunny. He even got to keep his eyebrows, though they'd changed to a sort of steely gray, still a lot darker than his fur ( _his fur!_ ) instead of the dark brown they'd been as a human. He even had light gray patterns in his fur, although his were snowflakes and frost patterns to Aster's black ferns.

"Probably." The Pooka sat down on the other side of the bed, and held out one arm. Jack immediately left off preening and crawled to the older male's side, snuggling up. "You scared me today, Frostbite."

"Sorry." His ears drooped. It was a slightly odd feeling, but good. "How...?"

"Why'd you hug _Pitch_?"

The two of them got adjusted in bed, Jack using Aster's shoulder for a pillow, before he answered. "Look at me, Kangaroo. I'm- like I've always wanted. Yeah, he meant to hurt me, but he didn't."

"Yeah, well." Aster pulled the light blanket over them. "Just remember he's the reason why I have to wake you every two hours, too."

"And not even-" he paused to yawn, "the fun way. Love you, Aster."

"Love you too," Aster mumbled back.

And then they slept.

* * *

Performing his winter duties was somehow more _fun_ in his proper body. Aster said he looked 'a stubby short of a six pack' while flying, which Jack sort of got, but it was said fondly so he didn't pout over it much. Besides, flying with his ears flapping in the wind was a whole new kind of fun he hadn't expected.

Flying was easy to re-learn, since for him, it was all about being carried by the wind. Explaining the change in species to his believers was almost as easy; he told them the truth, that someone had transformed him into a rabbit to hurt him, but they hadn't managed to _hurt_ him, and it wasn't reversible, but he didn't much mind. They seemed to accept it, though a few of the more precocious ones asked if this meant he was married to the Easter Bunny. Jack laughed, and asked if they'd like that.

Sure, he liked being Aster's mate, but he didn't feel the need to tell everybody. Maybe if children ever became an issue... He had rabbit DNA now- Aster had gotten out his scientific side and some extremely delicate bits of technology he'd saved from his own planet and confirmed that Jack was, indeed, a strange sort of rabbit- and rabbits and Pooka were so similar even the most sensitive of Aster's devices sometimes had trouble telling the difference between DNA strands. Sure, Jack couldn't do the gender-swap Aster could, he wasn't a shapeshifter, but he didn't much mind either. Well, mostly not. Sometimes he had to wonder what it would be like, being female, his stomach swelling gently with new life, but that was always an abstract consideration. He couldn't, so- but sometimes he did have to wonder about kits or kittens or whatever the proper word for baby Pooka was.

What would the kittens be like? Would they be blind and hairless little things like Earth rabbits, with multiples at a time, or would the kittens be more like human babies, with one at a time (usually) in exchange for being bigger when born, able to open their eyes and flail about right from the start?

He thought about asking Aster, frequently, but decided to hold off until they both had downtime and Jack stopped tripping over his own feet.

As easy as it had been to get used to flying, everything else seemed so much harder to learn. Just _moving_ under his own power, either on four legs or two, suddenly became incredibly difficult. He had to balance on his toes, whatever his stance, and the shift in his center of gravity often had him pitching to one side or the other. It wasn't exactly fun, but it was exciting. Maybe one day he'd get over that rush of waking up and seeing _fur_ in the morning, but it hadn't happened yet.

Because of his physical changes, Jack chose not to roam too far afield while tending to winter. The other spirits would just have to take up the slack for the year. And if they didn't, worst that would happen were some rough blizzards, certainly not the end of the world.

It meant he spent more time in the Warren, time Aster used to teach him how to move without falling flat on his face. Jack ensured he got a lot of practice outside as he worked, and there was nothing better for regaining coordination than snowball fights with children.

It figured Mother Nature would notice Jack's decreased level of work, and it also figured she would invade the Warren to find out _why_. Jack had expected he'd have to explain, but she took one look at him, nodded, and went right back out. He mentally shrugged, and returned to Aster's dexterity lesson, picking up things like pencils and eggs without either dropping them or crushing them in his suddenly stronger grip.

Jack also made sure to practice using his computer with his changed hands. As he'd expected, he'd had to search out a specialty keyboard and mouse, which certainly made things easier. And he got himself a new desk chair, one that wouldn't squish his tail and make it go numb while he sat on it. He fumbled a lot in the beginning, which got lots of questions and jokes from his friends online. He answered the more concerned individuals with an explanation of having to get the specialty mouse and keyboard, which prompted wishes that he 'got better' soon.

Which was ridiculous. He didn't need to get better- he _was_ better. For the first time in his life, he was exactly as he was supposed to be.

* * *

"Actually," Jack said, and poked at the plate of cookies, "chocolate's pretty lethal to rabbits. I probably shouldn't." He turned and studied Aster's plate of ginger snaps instead.

"Naw, mate, she'll be apples." Aster raised his eyebrows in response to North's scowl. "No, really. You're too big to be bothered by that little bit of chocolate, even if your digestion wasn't as much human as rabbit. Long as there weren't any animal by-products, North?"

"No, no, am telling yeti always to be careful in kitchen when cooking for friends and family." North set a last plate of cookies down at his own seat, and relaxed.

"There, see? Now, me, that much chocolate would give me six arms in a second." He chuckled, and nibbled at his ginger snap. "So none for me."

Jack nodded, and picked up a chocolate chip cookie. "That's good. I like these things."

"Bunny." Tooth fluttered her wings several times. "How do you know what Jack's digestion is like?"

Aster sniffed. "I might not've been trained to use any of the medical equipment I took from Gallifrey, lovie, but I've had a long time to learn the basics. Mind you, mate, I wouldn't eat pounds and pounds of chocolate, but-"

"-one little cookie won't kill me. Or three cookies, since you can't eat just one." Jack stood up, slow and careful, and took his plate. "I'm going to check on Sandy, guys. And there's a blizzard coming, I'll just check and see if it needs swung sideways a bit."

North waved one hand, and pulled out a deck of cards. "If you want to join game, we will deal you in later."

Yeah, how about _not_? Jack hadn't ever been able to conceal his expression, and now that he had ears and whiskers that twitched and gave away his every thought, he was even worse at it. He had no idea how Aster managed, but maybe the Kangaroo just looked grumpy to hide his reaction to the cards.

He carried his plate of cookies with him, pleased with how he could balance so easily now. Even two months earlier, he'd have needed to lean on his staff in order to shuffle from one end of the room to the other, never mind dodging yeti and stepping over elves. His staff was in the coat closet, where it'd be safely out of the way. He half figured North had offered the coat closet because he was tired of defrosting elves, but whatever the reason, Jack didn't mind.

He chuckled a little at the antics of one elf, but didn't throw it so much of a crumb of attention- or cookie. No need to encourage the little guy. If he did, he'd be knee deep in a mob of elves and he'd lose all his cookies in seconds.

"Hey, Sandy. Mind if I interrupt?"

The Sandman shook his head, and waved Jack out onto the balcony. The night sky was clear, for the moment, and the stars were obscured only by a natural aurora that flickered and waved like ribbons.

"Communing with old friends?" Jack asked, and nodded upwards at the sky.

Sandy shrugged, and eyed the plate of cookies. Jack held it out in invitation. Sandy took two.

"Hey!" He grinned anyways, and got comfortable on the balcony railing. "Going to snow soon." He picked up a cookie, and nibbled carefully at the edge. Things tasted differently now; vegetables had turned into his go-to snack food, the flavors suddenly so much more _intense_ than they'd been when he was human, while the scent of butter (and who knew _butter_ had a _scent_ ) could make his stomach turn on a bad day. The cookie seemed fine, though, just this side of too sweet.

Sandy nodded, and inquired about the chocolate.

"It's fine. Not enough to make me sick. Aster checked me over." Oh, _had_ he. Granted, Aster had been very stick in the mud when it came to the medical exams- Jack hadn't wanted full sex while on the table, just a couple kisses and maybe some fondling, but _no_ , Aster had to be a _killjoy_. With the medical stuff out of the way, however... Heh. Sex was fun. And Jack had only taken, at _most_ , two minutes to ogle his changed equipment. And then he'd focused on more important things, like pouncing his exasperated mate.

He took a large bite of cookie, and hummed. "Sandy, do you ever think this was planned?"

Sandy shook his head.

"Yeah, me neither. Just- what are the chances?" He laughed, and finished the first cookie, picking up the second. "When you think about it, all of us, everything that's happened, sometimes I do wonder. And then convince myself that I'm seeing patterns where there aren't any."

The two of them finished the plate of cookies in silence. Sandy stared up at the night sky, and Jack stared out over the snow.

Several minutes later, Jack's stomach lurched. "Oh," he groaned, and pressed one hand just below his diaphragm. "Maybe I shouldn't have had the chocolate," he told Sandy. "Or at least not that many cookies."

Sandy patted Jack's shoulder, worried.

"No, I'm fine-" His stomach gurgled, and he doubled over a little. He breathed slowly, in through the nose and out through the mouth, like he'd always done whenever he caught a stomach bug. It didn't help much this time, though. His stomach cramped, and then the cramp seemed to _migrate_ , of all things, up to his shoulders.

And then things got a little blurry...

Jack managed to recall bits and pieces later, but it was like trying to remember what he'd done while drunk for the first time. Three hundred and some odd years later, he still couldn't remember how he'd ended up in the Johnson's pig sty or where the hat had come from. His reaction to the chocolate was much the same, only with extra arms.

The first thing he remembered was running through the Workshop cackling madly, nothing unusual except for how he couldn't move more than two steps before running into something.

He remembered hitting himself in the face- several times- trying to control six arms and failing miserably.

He remembered babbling a mile a minute.

He remembered seeing Aster, and managing a flying leap into the wall behind his mate. He remembered said face-plant not fazing him in the least, and pulling Aster down on top of him.

Six arms actually made it possible for Jack to hold onto Aster when the Pooka struggled to stand up.

When he woke up, there was an IV in his arm and Aster was tinkering with one of his medical devices. They were in the Workshop, still, one of the guest rooms. Jack shifted, intent on sitting up, but his shoulders hurt.

"Here now, don't move." Aster left off his device and moved over to the bed. He stroked one hand over Jack's forehead. "You had a bad reaction, Frostbite."

"I remember six arms?" he said, somewhat weakly.

"Mmhm."

"That explains my shoulders. Why does my stomach hurt?"

"That'd be from the vomiting," Aster said dryly. "During your mad rampage, you ate a few things that disagreed with you. Like felt."

Jack blinked. And blinked again. "Felt? _Why_ \- never mind. What happened? Why'd it happen? And, for good measure, I didn't drink any alcohol, did I?"

"No, mate, no alcohol. Why?"

He grimaced and rubbed his head, with the hand that didn't have a needle in the back. "Last time I felt like this I was recovering from Granny's cider."

Aster chuckled. "Can't imagine you could get much drunk from a bunch of fermented apple juice."

" _Mostly_ apple juice. Trust me, that stuff had a kick like a mule."

"Well." Aster turned and went back to his fiddling. "You reacted to chocolate, mate."

"I noticed," Jack said dryly. "The IV might have given it away, if nothing else."

"Earth rabbits don't have that reaction to chocolate."

Jack sat up at that, sore stomach muscles or not. "What do you mean? I mean, I know they don't, but-"

Aster bowed his head. "Pooka are the only species in the known galaxy to have _that_ reaction to the stuff. It's an uncontrolled, but directed bit of shapeshifting. Shapeshifting you shouldn't be able to do, but you did it.

"I've been running your DNA again, comparing it to mine. It's... close. Species-wise, I mean, you might as well be bloody identical."

Jack opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head. "I don't think I understand. What?"

Aster's eyes shimmered a touch. "You're a Pooka."

"What." He pinched the bridge of his nose, a slightly harder task now that his skull was shaped differently. "How does that even _work_?"

"Dunno," Aster said, and crawled onto the bed. "Honestly don't know, but- can't complain, either, Snowflake. You're a _Pooka_."

He mustered up a smile, and pecked his mate's cheek. "Does this mean I can shapeshift?"

"With the right teaching."

"Uh huh." Jack thought about it, and snorted. "Right, I don't want to know. I finally get the right shape, I'm not losing it."

Aster settled down, and nuzzled the side of Jack's neck. "We'll see if you feel that way in a century or so, love. For right now, sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."

Jack nodded, and rubbed his chin against Aster's forehead. "Goodnight, Cottontail." He had so many questions springing to mind, but for right now-

Right now, he relaxed, and slept.

The questions could keep until the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yay! NaNo update- yesterday's goal was 49,000 out of 70,000, and I wrote 49,037 or so. Huzzah for that! (And pretty good since I missed a day. My father whacked me in the head with a ceiling light, completely by accident, but still. Ouch.)
> 
> And yup, one last chapter! Epilogue will be posted next Friday!


	5. Epilogue: This is a Gift

Early mornings were his favorite time of day.

They hadn't always been- for most of his life, he'd struggled with depression, off and on. He hadn't worried about it overmuch. He'd never been possessed of the desire to take his own life (and finish what Pitch Black started, and destroy what little remained of the Pooka, his own hand finishing the genocide Pitch started) but there were years where waking up was a challenge, and getting out of bed a battle he often lost. Those days happened less and less often, after meeting and joining the other Guardians, but they'd continued up until the first day Jack Frost caught him with a snowball.

Aster smiled, and nuzzled the back of his mate's neck. There was no one more infuriating, more distracting, or more _wonderful_ than Jack. Not that he'd ever say it, but back in the day a single encounter with Jack had been enough to keep him going on aggravation and rueful amusement for a decade. He would have told his mate that now, but the winter spirit could be easily flustered.

He'd fought, and snarled, and done his best to drive Jack away from the poor, broken thing that had once been E. Aster Bunnymund, but Jack was stubborn right back. Nothing- not the insults, not the (restrained) physical attacks, not even his reaction to the blizzard back in '68 kept Jack away for long. And, as though the universe itself (or just Manny) was conspiring to keep throwing them together, Jack was made a Guardian.

Aster had all but given in after that first year. He could see the inevitable, could almost see the path that he'd be dragged down- but then Jack started courting him, and that wasn't what he'd expected at all.

It had worked. He still wasn't quite sure how, but Jack- he nuzzled Jack's neck again, sorting through the scent of healthy male Pooka with the added extra that came with a rounded stomach and low energy- Jack just slid into Aster's life, his heart, and one day Aster woke up and there was a winter spirit in his nest and a computer (too complex and too basic for him to ever feel comfortable with it) in his burrow and all the bleeding holes in his soul had scabbed and scarred over.

He was the last- but it no longer hurt. The loss of his people and culture was a wound he'd expected would never close, but- but he'd mourned, and he'd moved on, and he'd always miss them but there were new people in his life and a new world to protect. There was more to life than just survival, and he'd finally started living.

Pooka had never suffered species dysphoria, to his knowledge. Shapeshifters being what they were, if someone was dissatisfied, they simply changed. Jack didn't have that option. Aster hadn't known what to think, or feel, and all the old fears had come rushing back in.

Jack was jealous of Aster- did that mean he'd come to resent the Pooka? He felt he was supposed to be a rabbit- did that mean he was only in the relationship for Aster's appearance? It didn't help that the universe seemed to conspire against him, this time keeping the two of them apart instead of shoving them together.

Talking with his friends helped. Finally having a chance to talk with Jack made things fit back together again. Aster had feared losing the life he now had, the mate he loved, and Jack's assurances were like sunlight melting away the shadows.

Not even Cupid's prank could wreck what the two of them had. Jack did complain, frequently at the beginning, that their first 'home run', whatever that meant, had been while 'roofied'. Aster learnt that the best response to such complaints involved hands wandering places indecent for public viewing, a growling voice, and trips to the nest to rid his mate of the annoying clothes humans insisted on wearing.

Aster yawned, and caressed the mound of Jack's stomach, plush fur soft as velvet under his hands. Those early days had been quite fun. He'd already known his mate's body quite well, by then, but there was something sensual and primal about thrusting into Jack, or impaling himself on his mate's prick, that just- it was like screaming challenges at the lightning, like waking in the morning to listen to rain on the thatch, like being born all over again. Impossible to get enough of the sensations, impossible to ever be fully sated even five orgasms in and exhausted.

He could have lost it. Could have lost Jack, the other half of his heart, his mate, the one who'd dragged him back into living again. Pitch, of course. One of the main reasons why he'd never confirmed the rumors that he and Jack were together. It wasn't as though he'd changed personalities, or gone into lewd public displays of affection- but Cupid had happened, and Pitch had found out, and Pitch liked hurting Aster. If he couldn't kill the Easter Bunny (and killing spirits was a great deal harder than killing off an entire galaxy, apparently) then he'd drive Aster insane.

So he'd taken Jack, and he'd _changed_ Jack, and he'd intended to torture Aster's mate in front of him-

It would have been bad enough if Jack had been human, if Pitch had cut and snipped and burnt and- but Pitch had used dark magic that should have turned Jack into a helpless animal.

Aster didn't know what was responsible for Jack turning into an anthropomorphic rabbit, like himself, but at the time it had only made things worse. Jack had gotten his dearest wish, and he was going to die, and Aster was going to have to watch.

"But it didn't happen," he mumbled, assuring himself. Jack snuffled, and muttered something in his sleep. The reminder of his living, healthy mate helped shove the dark memories back.

And it was hard not to laugh, remembering Pitch laughing hysterically in a blizzard of Jack's magic snowflakes. Laughing so much, so hard, had to have done damage to the Nightmare King. Certainly Pitch hadn't shown his face for the last fifteen years, like as not uninterested in a repeat.

He hadn't realized Jack had been turned into a Pooka (Terran Pooka, they'd eventually decided to term Jack's species, just different enough from Aster's physiology to make things _interesting_ ) until the incident with the chocolate.

Thankfully the original four Guardians had sworn a pact to never show Jack the pictures. The galah would have tried to keep high on chocolate for the rest of his _life_ if he'd had any idea of how he'd looked or the things he'd done.

Confirming Jack's species had actually led to one of their major arguments. Aster wanted to teach Jack shapeshifting, Jack didn't want to learn. They hadn't shared a nest for three weeks and Jack had rearranged all of Aster's things- even moving furniture from one room to another- in revenge.

Aster had _gotten lost_ in his own burrow. He hadn't been amused.

He'd capitulated first, in the end, desperate to not let this turn into a rift between them.

"Maybe one day," Jack had whispered. "I'd like kits." He'd pulled back, and stared very seriously at Aster. "You're carrying the first few litters- do Pooka have litters?"

He'd laughed in relief. "Naw, mate. I'd swear its part of being sentient- longer pregnancy, bigger kits, and a tendency to only one or two at a time."

There'd been enough to do without giving Jack lessons in shapeshifting. He'd put an emphasis, if only for himself, in re-learning his mate's body and all the sensitive spots. Jack certainly hadn't complained.

He could understand Jack's reluctance; he'd only just gotten the shape he'd always wanted, and even fiddling with his gender- for a binary species, for someone born to a binary species, it was a strange idea.

He'd taught Jack how to walk and run, to fight and play, and then Jack had asked for Pooka lore and history. Aster had shared what little he remembered.

And now... He sighed, and Jack finally stirred.

"Morning."

"Ugh. You're thinking loudly again. Can hear the gears clanking away."

"Hrmph." Aster nipped at Jack's ear. "Just for that I think I'll leave you here, get some tea."

Jack squirmed and rolled over, his belly pushing into Aster's. "No," he whined, and wrapped his arms around Aster's neck. "Stay."

Aster slid a leg up between Jack's, and ground his teeth in a purr. "That there's an argument I can hardly win against, isn't it?" he asked, and moved his hands down.

Jack had recently agreed to learn the basics of shapeshifting, what every Pooka knew mostly on instinct, partly from watching others. And promptly used it for sex, but what Pooka didn't? Aster had long ago gotten the hang of switching out his plumbing at near a drop of the hat, and Jack quickly matched him. Half of the attraction had been the novelty, Aster would bet, but no harm in that.

And then Jack had gotten pregnant. _That_ discovery had been an interesting one.

Jack was fine with the idea now, although it'd taken almost four months for him to stop growling at Aster.

"You were supposed to have the first couple," had become Jack's favorite thing to say.

Jack sighed at Aster's touch, and pulled him down for a kiss. "There's good," he said, against the older Pooka's lips. And, "You're on bottom."

"Ah," Aster said, and rolled onto his back. "Revenge sex?"

"The kitten kicked my spleen _all night_. That's your fault."

It took some contorting, what with the size of Jack's stomach. Jack was a small and slender thing, and Aster was actually somewhat short himself, considering the average Pooka, but the kitten was clearly taking after Aster's father. Allendyce had been seven feet, six inches tall. Jack currently looked like he was carrying a small, active whale, and there were four more months of pregnancy to go.

Aster wondered what they'd do in another two months for sex. It'd be impossible to hide that he'd forgotten to keep everything adjusted to prevent pregnancy himself by then.

Jack would just be annoyed that Aster had gotten pregnant _second_.

They came, one after the other, with quiet sighs and gentle touches. Aster helped Jack ease back down onto his side, and curled up around him.

"Aster?" Jack's eyes were closed. He'd probably sleep some more. Between it being summer and the kitten taking all his energy, Jack spent a lot of his time resting.

"Mm?"

"Why's your scent changed?"

Aster smiled, and moved one of Jack's hands to the slight curve of his stomach. "Funny you should say that, Frostbite," he said, and laughed when Jack's eyes popped open.

Early mornings really were his favorite time of day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! Please enjoy the last chapter of Rabbit Heart. (What is this I seem to have a thing for making Jack a Pooka... let's not talk about the other idea I've got for Pooka-Jack... Yet...) In NaNo news, yesterday's goal was 65,333, and I wrote 64,164. I blame the day I missed for that. Two days left to hit 70,000, think I can make it? -grin-


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